A Paper Presented To:

The Theological Forum On Contemporary Issues

At

Family Baptist Church

Tigard, OR.

On

April 21, 2004

By

Dale R. Spurbeck

Professor of Greek and Bible Analysis

Dispensational Theological Seminary

INTRODUCTION:

The topic given for this paper is “The better things in Hebrews: identified and compared with Hebrews eleven.” Our 2001 forum paper was titled “The Good And The Better: The Best A Man Could Be Under Law And The Best A Man Can Be Under Grace.” There we dealt with the concepts of better things. This paper will be limited to the better things in Hebrews and the promises to the men and women of faith listed in Hebrews eleven.

Most Bible students ignore the meaning of “better.” Reformed Theology sees only one people of God, without distinction. The so-called “Progressive Dispensationalists” also find only one people of God. They say that the Church and Israel receive the same things in the future. All get the same future tense salvation upon the new earth. The differences in Scripture are ignored. Some of these differences are found in the Book of Hebrews. Paul was writing to Hebrew Christians, living in Jerusalem, pointing out to them some of the differences between what Israel was promised under law and what the Church is promised under grace. Some of these differences are expressed using the term “better.” “Better” cannot be the same as what it is compared to. “Better” is the comparative of “good.” Israel through Abraham had good promises. Under the law they looked for the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham, which primarily involved land. But the Church has better promises, pertaining to heavens. The promises are not the same. The things pertaining to Israel are not the same as the things pertaining to the Church. “Better” (krei,tton), the comparative of “good” (avgaqo,j) occurs eleven times in the Book of Hebrews. Three of the occurrences describe some in the Old Testament who will receive something better than others in the Old Testament. Eight times the Church is said to have something better than Israel. There are seven distinct better things given, for Paul speaks twice of a better covenant. These will be the emphasis of the paper. Better is not the same as that with which it is compared. The first part of this paper will develop the identity of the better things in Hebrews.

Paul had been persuaded and was yet persuaded of better things from the Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem. These were things that belonged to salvation (possessive genitive). These Christians had a problem with carnality, cf. Heb. 5:11-14. Paul had some things to say to them about Melchisedec but they were difficult for him to explain to them because they were “dull,” i.e. sluggish, with reference to hearing, vs. 11. They had been saved for enough time that they should have been able to teach the basics of the Christian life but they needed to be taught again these very things. They had come to be in need of milk and not solid food (“strong meat”). They were in the same condition as many in the Corinthian church when Paul wrote to them, cf. I Cor. 3:1. Those who partake of milk for their food, i.e. the A,B,C’s of the Christian life are “unskilled,” i.e. untried, in the word concerning righteousness. They haven’t been put to the test to come out approved. The Christians in Jerusalem, like the Corinthians, were babes, i.e. inarticulate babblers. They were spiritually no different than a young child who is unable to express himself in words. They needed to be taught again (vs. 12), which means they had been taught before but were spiritual freaks who had not matured. They were stunted in their growth because of carnality. They were like babes who can only handle milk. Solid food is for those who are mature. Maturity is measured by their habit of having their senses exercised to discern both good, that which is proper, and evil, that which is lacking in character. The babe is unproven in these areas in his Christian life. Such was the condition of many Hebrew Christians in Jerusalem. Paul’s encouragement to them, especially the carnal ones, was to go on to maturity, 6:1. They needed to leave the basics concerning Christ to do so. They were stuck on the baby things in the Christian life. These were Christians, 6:4. They had been enlightened, cf. II Cor. 4:4. They had tasted of the heavenly gift. They had been made partakers of the Holy Spirit. They had tasted the noble utterance from God and the power of the age to come, vs. 5. But it is impossible (vs. 4) to renew them unto repentance, if they trespass, vs. 6. They crucified Christ to themselves again putting Him to open shame. They acted as if Christ’s work was insufficient for them to have victory and go on to maturity.

When we turn to Hebrews eleven, the “faith” chapter, we find a list of individuals who had faith before the law was given and some after the giving of the law. The list covers individuals who lived in four different dispensations, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, and Law. None of these received the promise given to them. Believers in this Dispensation of Grace are said to have a better thing in the future.

We will break the paper into two parts. In the first part we will identify the Church’s better things as they are described in Hebrews. In the second part of the paper we will develop the promises given in the different dispensations referred to in chapter eleven. We will then compare the Church’s better things with the promises given to the previous dispensations showing how the promises to the Church are not the same as those in the promises preceding but that they are better.

In this first part of the paper we will identify the better things pertaining to the Church.

There are seven “betters” referring to the Church.

I. THE BETTER THINGS THAT BELONG TO SALVATION, Heb. 6:9.

Paul’s encouragement to these Hebrew Christians, especially the carnal ones, was to go on to maturity, 6:1. They needed to leave the basics concerning Christ to do so. They were stuck on the baby things in the Christian life. As stated in the introduction these were Christians, 6:4. They had been enlightened. They had tasted from the heavenly gift. They had been made partakers of the Holy Spirit. They had tasted the good utterance from God and the powers of the age to come, 6:5. But it is impossible to renew them if they should happen to fall alongside. They in effect crucify the Son of God again to themselves and put Him to open shame as though He didn’t do enough. The Holy Spirit will be grieved in such a Christian. Another Christian cannot renew the carnal Christian but the Holy Spirit can. If the carnal Christian doesn’t repent, God will chasten him even to the point of taking him home, cf. Heb. 12:5ff. This is what happened to some in Corinth, I Cor. 11:30-32. The Lord will not allow them to be condemned with the world. This is illustrated by the earth and what it produces. The ground is representative of the Christian. The earth, which is watered and brings forth herbs useful or fit for those on whose account it is also cultivated, receives well spokenness from God, 6:7. God speaks well of the ground, i.e. the Christian, if fruit is produced. But if it brings forth thorns and thistles, it is unapproved and near a curse, whose end is burning, 6:8. The ground is not burned up but it is burned over and the unapproved product is destroyed. This will take place at the bh/ma, cf. I Cor. 3:15; II Cor. 5:10. Paul didn’t want to be unapproved by a lack of self-control, cf. I Cor. 9:27. This is not a loss of salvation. There is a loss of well-spokenness in a family sense. Yet, grace believers have all spiritual blessings (well-spokenness) in the heavenlies in their position in Christ, Eph. 1:3.

This backdrop leads us into the verse under consideration: “But beloved, we stand persuaded of better things generally concerning you, even things that belong to salvation, though we speak in this manner,” 6:9. Paul is convinced that they will change and live up to their potential in their present tense salvation. The present middle participle of e'cw has the idea of belonging to or accompanying. These better things, concerning which Paul is persuaded generally concerning these Hebrew Christians, are things that accompany salvation. What things accompany our New Testament salvation? We have a hint in Colossians, Col. 3:1-2. At salvation we receive some positions and possessions as a result of Spirit baptism. (See Appendix A). These are referred to as “things above.” Grace believers are to “seek things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” and to “place their framework of thinking on things above, not on things on the earth.” (On the other side of the coin grace believers receive eternal life as a result of regeneration, since Christ, having been written in grace believers’ hearts by the Holy Spirit, indwells them, I Jn. 5:11-13; II Cor. 3:2-3). The better things here relate to the fourth Abrahamic Covenant, 6:13-14. Abraham was promised a multiple yet singular seed, cf. Gen. 22:17-18. The New Testament interprets this for us. Christ is the singular seed, Gal. 3:16. The grace believer being in Christ, who is the physical seed of Abraham, is the multiple seed, cf. Gal. 3:26-29, (especially verse 29). The promises of the covenant are an anchor in the heavenly Holy of Holies where Jesus, as High Priest after the order of Melchisedec, entered as the forerunner for us, Heb. 6:19-20. It is there that the Father sees us seated together with Christ, Eph. 2:6. These better things that accompany our salvation are all that we are and have in the heavenlies in Christ. These are the result of Spirit baptism, I Cor. 12:12-13; Gal. 3:26-27. These connect together with the eternal life we have since Christ is in us as a result of regeneration.

Not all of these Hebrew Christians were carnal. Some had directed a part of the fruit from the Spirit- love, 6:10. But many were carnal, cf. 5:11-12. Paul was persuaded that most of the Hebrew Christians, who were carnal, would change and be spiritual rather than continue living in carnality, where they were producing things by the flesh that could not stand when put to the test and they would be unapprovable. Paul was convinced that they would live in their position in Christ at the Father’s right hand and manifest eternal life so they would be well spoken of by the Father. Such a life would be better than living in carnality. The comparative “better” here is compared with a life of carnality, stunted growth, and unapprovedness. Now these better things are also better than the provisions for the life anyone could live in the previous dispensations. Spirit baptism and regeneration are limited to this present Dispensation of Grace. Our salvation under grace is better by far than the salvation of any saint in any of the previous dispensations. But the comparison here deals with a lifestyle of carnality versus living in one’s position and living out eternal life as a Spirit filled believer.

II. A BETTER COVENANT, Heb. 7:22; 8:6.

The grace believer’s salvation is based on a better covenant than the law. The grace believer’s better covenant is based on better promises, cf. 8:6. The verse says “But now He has obtained and has a ministry, by so much also He is mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon the basis of better promises.” There are three different covenants in Hebrews eight. (See Appendix B). The Mosaic Covenant is referred to in verses seven, nine and thirteen. The first reference is an ellipsis. It is called “that first” (in order) covenant. It occurs in a second class condition, i.e. contrary to fact. “For if that first covenant was continuously faultless, but it wasn’t, a place would not have been continuously sought concerning a second covenant, but it was,” 8:8. There was nothing wrong with the law in itself, cf. Rom. 7:12. The law was holy. The law was good, if a man used it lawfully, I Tim. 1:8. The problem was not with the law itself but with the people for whom it was laid down, I Tim. 1:9-10. In the following verses the New Covenant with Israel is contrasted with the Old Covenant, i.e. the law- the Mosaic Covenant, 8:8-13.

God had found fault to them, i.e. Israel. It was built into the law that it would fail. Therefore, He will cut a New Covenant with them, the house of Israel and the house of Judah. He goes back to the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31:31-34. “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make over the house of Israel and the house of Judah a New Covenant (as to quality),” 8:8. This New Covenant is not measured by the Mosaic Covenant, i.e. “the covenant that I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt,” 8:9. This first covenant with the nation Israel was made old when God spoke of a New Covenant, 8:13. The New Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah rendered the Mosaic Covenant old. Paul goes on to say that since it is made old and aging it is near vanishing. The first covenant was given through Moses to the nation Israel. The New Covenant that will replace it is also to be made with the nation Israel. This New Covenant of Jeremiah 31 is called the second covenant, 8:7. The New Covenant with Israel promises them that God will give His laws (for the Millennial Kingdom) into their mind and will write it upon their hearts and they will be a people for God, 8:10. God is not through with the nation Israel. At that time they will all know the Lord intellectually, 8:11. This in no way applies to the Church. The Church is neither the house of Israel nor the house of Judah. The laws written in their hearts will replace the Mosaic law in the Millennium, cf. the Sermon on the Mount, Mt. 5ff. This has no application whatsoever to the Church but will apply to Israel in the future. The Church does not nor will it ever share in the blessings of Israel’s New Covenant. The Church has a better covenant. Her New Covenant is better than Israel’s New Covenant. By comparison they are not the same. Paul has built up to the Church’s better covenant in the verses leading up to the sixth verse. The better covenant there, which has better promises, is the one established by the risen and glorified Lord, Jesus Christ, for the Church.

The Church’s covenant is better than Israel’s Old Covenant and their New Covenant. Israel’s New Covenant is never said to be better than her Old Covenant. It is never called a “better” covenant. But the Church has a covenant that is better in direct comparison with Israel’s Old Covenant.

The Church’s better covenant is mediated by her High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Israel, under law, was not a priesthood. They could have been a nation of priests, Ex. 19:5-6. All they had to do was keep Jehovah’s covenant that He cut with Abraham concerning land in Genesis 15. All they had to do was go in and possess the land but they wanted to help God out and said they would do all that Jehovah had said, Ex. 19:8. As a result, God gave them something to do, the law, i.e. the Mosaic Covenant. They received a priesthood instead of being priests. The priests were from the tribe of Levi and of the house of Aaron. Now the Church’s better covenant is based upon a High Priest who could not have served as a priest on earth. (See Appendix C). Her High Priest is from the wrong tribe, the tribe of Judah, Heb. 7:14. His high priesthood is measured by the standard of the order of Melchisedec and His priesthood will continue into the ages, Heb. 6:20. Melchisedec’s priesthood abides into perpetuity, 7:3. Paul illustrates how Melchisedec was a priest of the Most High God. Abraham paid a tithe to Melchisedec, 7:4-6. Levi, who as a priest received tithes, also paid tithes in the loins of his great grandfather Abraham, 7:8-10. The Levitical Priesthood had limitations. “Perfection,” i.e. maturation, was not through this priesthood, otherwise there would not have been a need for a different priest to arise after the priestly order of Melchisedec, 7:11. With the change in priesthood, there was also the need to change the law for something that could bring maturity, 7:12. The different priest is in the likeness or similarity to Melchisedec, 7:15. His priesthood is not measured by a commandment belonging to the law but is measured by inherent power from an enduring life, i.e. His life past the grave, 7:16. Christ is a priest into the age measured by the standard of the order of Melchisedec, 7:17. Christ, having died and risen from the dead, is a priest of this different priesthood on the basis of His on going life past the grave.

The next two verses are explanatory, “For, on the one hand, there comes to be a setting aside of a commandment through its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing mature,” 7:18-19a. Christ became a priest by the swearing of an oath, but the priests under law came to be priests without the swearing of an oath. They came to be priests because they were of the right family. Jehovah swore by an oath and He will not be made to regret, “You are a priest into the age as measured by the order of Melchisedec,” 7:20-21. Christ had to have an oath to be a High Priest.

All of this leads up to the first reference to “a better covenant” (as to quality). Paul uses the word diaqh,kh- “covenant” seventeen times in Hebrews out of a total of thirty-three occurrences in the New Testament. He uses the verb diati,qhmi- “to make a covenant” four times out of a total of seven occurrences. This is the first use of the term in Hebrews. The verse reads, “By so much Jesus came to be and continues to be a guarantor of a better covenant,” 7:22. The Lord Jesus was a so much better High Priest than Israel’s high priests and His covenant with the Church was so much better than their covenant, the law. He was a guarantor or surety of a better covenant.

Since Jesus is a priest after the order of Melchisedec, His priesthood is non-transferable for it abides into the age. He is a guarantor, i.e. a surety, of a better covenant. The Lord Jesus, Himself, is the security that this better covenant will not be annulled. This was not the case with Israel’s priesthood, “And the ones having come to be and who are priests, on the one hand, are many because they are forbidden to continue by death; but, on the other hand, He has an untransferable priesthood because He abides into the age; whence, He is able also to save unto the all end the ones coming to God through Him, living at all times as a result to intercede in behalf of them,” 7:23-25. The priesthood of the Old Testament was a changing priesthood, being transferred from one generation of the sons of Aaron to the next since they kept dying off. But the Church’s High Priest died and lives and His priesthood is untransferrable. He lives. They died. His is an enduring priesthood and as a High Priest, after the order of Melchisedec, He is the guarantor of a New and better Covenant. He didn’t have to offer daily, first for His own sins and then for the people’s. He had no sin of His own. He offered Himself once for all. There was no more to be offered since He is perfect into the age, cf. 7:26-28. His was the perfect sacrifice. He was God’s perfect Lamb, cf. I Pet. 1:19, Jn. 1:29.

Paul brings these things to a summary or head. He describes the Lord Jesus Christ as the Church’s High Priest, “We have (as a possession) such a High Priest, who sat in the right hand of the throne belonging to the Majesty in the heavens, a servant pertaining to the holy things and the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man,” 8:1-2. Christ’s service is in the heavenly tabernacle. Having been raised out from dead ones and having ascended into the heavens, He sat down at the Father’s right hand in the place of privilege. From there He serves in the heavenly tabernacle. There He intercedes for us to keep us saved, 7:25; Rom. 8:34; cf, Heb. 9:24. The high priest’s purpose was to make offerings to God as Paul explains, “For every high priest is appointed for the purpose of offering both gifts and sacrifices, whence it was necessary that this man also should have something which He should offer. For if, on the one hand, He was upon the earth but He wasn’t, nor, on the other hand, would He not have been a priest but He was, the priests, being the ones offering the gifts measured by the law, who serve a copy and shadow pertaining to the heavenly things, just as Moses received warning and was warnedwhen being about to complete the tabernacle, for ‘see’ says He, you shall make all things measured by the pattern (type) the one having been shown to you in the mount,’” 8:3-5. The Old Testament priests offered gifts and sacrifices in the earthly tabernacle. The Lord Jesus Christ also had to have something to offer as a High Priest. He offered Himself. If He was here on earth, he could not have offered sacrifices for He didn’t belong to the tribe of Levi and the house of Aaron, but to the tribe of Judah. His once for all offering of Himself was in the heavenly tabernacle of which the earthly tabernacle was but a copy.

This brings us back to the verse we started this section with, 8:6. All of the ministries of the Old Testament priests were carried out here on earth. There were many priests who perpetually carried out the temple service with the blood of animals which could never take away sins. The high priest alone went into the holy of holies and offered sacrifices once a year. He first offered for his own sins and then the sins of the people. They entered into the earthly tabernacle, which was patterned after the real tabernacle in the heavens. The Church’s High Priest, the Lord Jesus, entered only once and will never enter to offer again. He entered with His own blood. His sacrifice was sufficient to take away the sins of the world once for all. He, as the spotless Lamb of God, did not have to offer for His own sins but just for the sins of mankind. He was without sin, 4:15. Having completed His offering He sat down at the right hand of the Father, cf. 8:1; 7:27; 9:25; 10:12; 13:11. Verse six looks at His present service at the Father’s right hand.

“But now” sets a mild contrast. “But now He has obtained and has a more superior service by so much also He is mediator of a better covenant…” 8:6. Christ is the guarantor, the surety, of this better covenant, 7:22. Here He is the mediator of the better covenant, cf. I Tim. 2:5. This is a better covenant than the Old Covenant, the law, cf. 8:7,9,13. This is a better covenant than the New Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, which will be established in the future Millennial Kingdom, cf. 8:7-8,10-13. Commentators tend to find only two covenants in this passage, the old and the new. They find some participation of the Church in the New Covenant with Israel, equating it with the better covenant. However, this cannot be, for the New Covenant with Israel is future, but Christ is “now,” in this Dispensation of Grace, the Mediator of a better covenant. Notice the temporal adverb “now.” It doesn’t mean in the future, but now, at this very moment when Paul was writing. The covenant Paul writes of is a better covenant. It is not the same as the Old Covenant, nor is it the same as Israel’s future New Covenant. Israel’s New Covenant is never referred to as a “better” covenant. Paul brings it up here to show from the Old Testament that the law was not going to continue but would be replaced by a New Covenant. This New Covenant is not the one to the Church but the one for Israel. Christ’s service as a High Priest is far superior to that of the Old Testament priests and the covenant He now mediates at the Father’s right hand is a better covenant. It cannot be better and be the same. It is not the same as Israel’s first covenant given in the past, i.e. the law, nor is it the same as the New Covenant they will be given in the future. It is a better covenant and Christ is right now serving as its mediator.

Just what is this “better covenant” made with the Church? This “better covenant” is the “New Covenant by my blood,” I Cor. 11:25. We find two references in Hebrews where the Church’s better covenant is itself called a New Covenant. There is also a reference to the blood of the covenant. Israel’s New Covenant is not said to be a covenant “by my blood,” cf. Jer. 31:31-34. In Jeremiah thirty-one and Hebrews eight it is a covenant by which the millennial law will be written in their hearts. To identify the Church’s New Covenant we will not only examine the references in Hebrews, we will also need to go back to the Corinthian epistles. There we will find that Christ, not the law, is written in the grace believer’s heart by the Holy Spirit. This is better.

We have seen that Christ is said to be the mediator of the Church’s better covenant, Heb. 8:6. He is also said to be the mediator of the New Covenant in two different passages, 9:15; 12:24. He is not the mediator of the Old Covenant nor of Israel’s New Covenant. The New Covenant He mediates and guarantees is a covenant by blood, while the New Covenant with Israel is not said to be by blood. This new and better covenant with the Church involves Christ’s own blood. It is not new compared with Israel’s Old Covenant, though it is newer. It is new to the Church compared with the fourth Abrahamic Covenant, cf. 6:13-14; Gen. 22:17-18; Gal. 3:16,27-29. The New Covenant is an addition to the fourth Abrahamic Covenant. The Church’s new and better covenant is based on the position of the believer in Christ. Christ in you works together with you in Christ. You in Christ needs Christ in you to be worked out. Before we look at the two passages that call it a new covenant, we want to see that it involves Christ’s blood.

Paul uses the first person plural in addressing the grace believers in Jerusalem. Many of these were carnal, as pointed out earlier, cf. 5:11-13. There is a problem for the grace believer who goes on sinning “willfully” after receiving the full experiential knowledge concerning “the truth,” there is no longer remaining a sacrifice for sins,” 10:26. Christ offered His sacrifice of Himself once for all, never to be repeated. He can’t offer Himself again for sins. The grace believer has access directly into the heavenly holy of holies by the blood of Jesus, by a freshly slain and living way (by His resurrection) which He inaugurated for us through the veil, i.e. His flesh, as a great priest over God’s household,” 10:19-21. Now the believer has direct access to enter within the veil in the third heaven, 10:22, cf. 4:16; 6:19-20. Paul encourages them to hold fast their confession; to consider or contemplate one another unto a provocation with reference to love and appropriate works, while not forsaking the assembling of themselves together, especially in view of the nearness of the Rapture. They are to exhort one another so they won’t go on sinning spontaneously, 10:22-26. In the Old Testament there was judgment, 10:27-28. Now we come to the blood of the covenant. “By how much worse punishment are you supposing he will be deemed worthy having trampled under foot God’s Son and having counted the blood of the covenant common by which He was set apart and having insulted the Spirit of grace,” 10:29.

For the Christian to go on sinning is like trampling Christ under foot and utterly insulting the Holy Spirit by his actions. It is saying by activity that Christ didn’t do enough to keep him from sinning; that the blood of Christ is no different than any other blood; that the Holy Spirit didn’t supply grace for the Christian to live under. The blood of the covenant is the blood of Christ. This is the covenant by Christ’s blood. If the Christian goes on sinning, he can expect discipline from the Lord, 10:30-31; cf. 12:5-11; I Cor. 11:32.

This covenant by Christ’s blood is the better and New Covenant for the Church. The Old Testament High Priest went into the holy of holies on earth once a year, but not without blood which he offered for himself and then for the people, 9:7. The Lord Jesus Christ, having become a High Priest, entered in once for all through His own blood into the heavenly Holy of Holies, 9:12-14. The next verse speaks of the New Covenant, “And on account of this He is mediator of a New Covenant, so that death having come to be because of complete redemption concerning the transgressions during the time of the first covenant, the ones having been called (to salvation) may receive the promise, namely the eternal inheritance,” 9:15. This was written to Jewish believers living during the transition from law to grace. They came out from under the law. They, now being grace believers, were no longer under law and they were no longer able to transgress. Christ died because of a quality of complete redemption so that those who were under the Mosaic Covenant would have an eternal inheritance. Under law the Jews were promised to inherit land on earth. In the Old Testament a covenant was made with the death of animals. The one making the covenant didn’t die, but he offered animals which died. The best example of this is seen when God cut His first covenant with Abraham, Gen. 15:9-11. The animals were slain and divided in two. Then God, who was cutting the covenant, walked between the animals in effect saying “May the same thing that happened to these animals happen to me, if I should break this covenant.” A covenant was established over dead ones (animals). It has no strength as long as (the things being offered) are alive, 9:16-17. Christ offered Himself to the Father, 9:14. He was God’s perfect Lamb, Jn. 1:29. He offered His own blood upon the heavenly altar, hence it is a better covenant. The sacrifices of the law could not mature the one carrying out the service as it pertained to their conscience, 9:9. Christ accomplished what the sacrifices of the law could not, cf. 10:10-12,14. The law was going to be replaced by another covenant, i.e. Israel’s New Covenant, which was written about earlier, cf. 10:16-17 and 8:7-13.

In the next passage dealing with the Church’s New Covenant, it is contrasted, speaking of better things than Abel, 12:24. Jesus, the mediator of a New Covenant and the blood of sprinkling are found in the future in the heavenly city, New Jerusalem, cf. 12:22,24. The New Covenant is both new in quality and new in time. Here the emphasis is on new in time. The blood of sprinkling relates to present tense salvation and the covenant by Christ’s blood. The blood of the covenant is in heaven to show that they are clean, cf. I Pet. 1:2. This blood will be in the New Jerusalem in the future when Christ is there. Today it keeps on cleansing the believer from all sin, I Jn. 1:7.

Paul earlier spoke to the Corinthians about this New Covenant for the Church. The Lord had said “This cup is the New Covenant by my blood…” I Cor. 11:25. The cup is the symbol of the New Covenant by His blood. This is a cup pertaining to blessing and is the sharing in common of Christ’s blood, I Cor. 10:16. The cup speaks of the contents of the cup. It relates to Christ’s blood which He shed on Calvary and offered on the heavenly altar as the grace believer’s High Priest. The contents of this New Covenant are identified in the second epistle to the Corinthians. Paul says “And we have such confidence through the previously mentioned Christ facing the God (the Father). Not that we are having sufficiency from ourselves to reckon anything as out from ourselves (as to source), but our sufficiency is out from the God (as to source), who also made us sufficient servants concerning a New Covenant, not concerning a letter (of the law), but concerning the Spirit, for the letter (the law) kills but the Spirit gives life,” II Cor. 3:4-6. Life relates to birth, cf. Jn. 3:3-8. For Nicodemus to see the Kingdom of God, i.e. to be saved, he had to be born from above when the Holy Spirit came. Since the Holy Spirit has come, grace believers are born again, i.e. regenerated, cf. Tit. 3:5; I Pet. 1:3. This birth takes place in the realm of the human spirit, Jn. 3:6. This life is eternal life. Eternal life is imparted by the indwelling Christ. He, in the realm of His divine nature, indwells the believer and imparts the divine quality of life, I Jn. 5:11-13. To have the Son is to have life, I Jn. 5:12. The Son is the believer’s eternal life, Col. 3:4. He is the believer’s hope of matching up to God’s opinion of what he should be, Col. 1:27. The New Covenant with the Church, which is a better covenant than the Mosaic Covenant, is a covenant accomplished by Christ indwelling the believer. How does Christ get into the believer? Christ is written not with ink, but by the Spirit from the living God; not written in tables of stone (as the law was) but in fleshy tables of the heart, i.e. in the inner man, the intellect, emotions and will, II Cor. 3:3. Christ is in the believer today by regeneration. The believer can now reflect as in a mirror the glory of Christ being changed into the same image from one degree of glory to a greater degree of glory from the Holy Spirit, II Cor. 3:18. The believer, in this Dispensation of Grace, can manifest the character of Christ, who is written in his heart by the Holy Spirit. Under the Old Covenant with Israel they could not do this. Christ was not in them. The New Covenant by Christ’s blood, which is made with the Church, truly is a better covenant. There is hardly a comparison. The Church’s New Covenant is also better than Israel’s future New Covenant. The Jews living in the kingdom will not be indwelt by Christ. Christ will not be written in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, but millennial law will be written in their hearts. Christ, as the grace believer’s High Priest, is mediator of a so much better covenant. This better covenant is based on better promises.

III. THE BETTER PROMISES PERTAINING TO THE CHURCH’S BETTER COVENANT, Heb. 8:6.

“But now He has obtained a superior service, by so much also He is mediator of a better covenant, which (covenant) is activated upon the basis of better promises,” 8:6.

Covenants are more than promises but they do have their basis in promises. Not all promises in Scripture are covenants. The Scriptures identify covenants as covenants such as “better covenant” or “New Covenant.” A covenant will be accompanied by some special solemn occasion or special ritual. The promises that accompany the Church’s better covenant are special unique promises to the Church. The verse doesn’t spell out what these promises are. But we can pick up some of them in the context of the Book of Hebrews and elsewhere. The promises relate to Christ’s high priestly ministry and His mediating a better covenant. They have their basis in the promises given to Abraham in the fourth Abrahamic Covenant.

We have already pointed out that the Old Testament offerings couldn’t make the one offering the sacrifices and offerings mature pertaining to his conscience, 9:9. Those who brought sacrifices could never be matured under law, 10:1. But under grace, the believer can go on to maturity. As noted before, Paul wrote to the Hebrews, “Let us be borne on to maturity,” 6:1. There is solid (spiritual) food that belongs to the grace believer who is maturing- “to the ones who on account of habit are having their senses in a state of having been exercised facing discernment of both good and evil,” 5:14. There is the potential, then, for the grace believer to mature, cf. Phil. 3:15, though maturity is a relative thing, cf. Phil. 3:12. In this sense the promises which are the basis for the Church’s New Covenant are better than the promises in the Old Testament. They could not go on to maturity under law or in any of the dispensations preceding law.

The promises are also better because they go back to the promises of the fourth Abrahamic Covenant in chapter six. There Paul refers back to Genesis 22:17-18 where God swore by an oath to Abraham. We begin with the eleventh verse, “Now we are strongly desiring each one out from you (Hebrew Christians) to graphically demonstrate the same eagerness facing the full assurance from the hope until the end, in order that you should not come to be sluggish but you come to be mimics of the ones inheriting the promises through faith and longsuffering,” 6:11-12. It is possible through the directing of faith and longsuffering toward the situations of life for the spiritual believer to inherit the promises relative to living in his position in Christ. The next verses go on to explain, “For God having promised to Abraham, since He had nothing greater to swear (by an oath), He swore (by an oath) as measured by Himself saying, ‘Most certainly speaking well I will speak well of you and multiplying I will multiply you,’” 6:13-14. The fourth Abrahamic Covenant contained four parts. In the first part Abraham was promised blessing; a seed like the sand upon the sea shore; possession of the gates of his enemies; and blessing of the nations upon the earth by his seed, Gen. 22:17-18. Abraham was blessed or well spoken of. This was a personal promise. The second part of the covenant finds fulfillment in Christ and the Church. The New Testament interpretation of the covenant is plain to see. “Now to Abraham the promises were said and to his seed (singular); It isn’t saying; and to seeds (plural), as for many, but rather as for one; and to your seed (singular), who is Christ,” Gal. 3:16. It is clear that Christ is the singular seed of Abraham promised in the fourth Abrahamic Covenant. His natural descent was from Abraham, cf. Lk. 3:34. Jesus was born a Jew from the offspring of Abraham. He was the natural seed of Abraham. This singular seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, also becomes a multiple seed. The end of the chapter spells out how this is taking place. “For you are all sons belonging to God through the faith in Christ Jesus; for as many of you as were baptized into Christ, you put on Christ as an outer garment. In Him is neither Jew nor Greek (non Jew- Gentile), in Him is neither slave nor free, in Him is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. But since you, on your part, are Christ’s, then (the logical inference is) you are (a quality) of Abraham’s seed and heirs as measured by (a quality of) promise,” Gal. 3:26-29. Those who are not natural descendants of Abraham (and a few who are) are immersed by the Holy Spirit into Christ who is a natural descendent of Abraham and hence the singular seed of the promise. In Christ, God the Father sees no distinctions. He sees all grace believers as one. Being in Christ, who is the natural seed, grace believers are the seed of Abraham and heirs of promise. The Church does not become Israel. Individual Christians do not become Jews. Nor does Israel somehow become the Church. This is positional. The Church in Christ is the multiple seed of Abraham and heirs as measured by promise.

Paul says to the Romans that Abraham is the father of us all (Christians) whether those out from law or to the seed out from faith, Rom. 4:16. Faith is the source of this relationship, not natural descent. The promise out from faith (as to source) may be given to the ones who believe, Gal. 3:22.

When God swore by an oath to Abraham, He swore as measured by Himself, Heb. 6:13,16. He determined more abundantly to point out to the heirs of promise the immutability of His determinative counsel, He mediated it by an oath, Heb. 6:17. His counsel and oath are unalterable. God cannot lie.

The third part of the fourth Abrahamic Covenant involved the possession of the gate of the singular seed’s enemies, Gen. 22:18. When Christ, the singular seed, came, He came unto His own things but His own people did not receive Him alongside, Jn. 1:11. If His own people had received Him, He would have conquered their physical enemies. But since they didn’t, the enemies changed, cf. Lk. 1:71-74. In the prayer of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptizer, he refers back to the fourth Abrahamic Covenant and how the promise was given for the deliverance from the nation’s enemies. But Christ, having accomplished His cross work, has provided the means for deliverance for the grace believer from the power of his spiritual enemies: the world, the flesh and the devil. Now the grace believer can have victory over his spiritual enemies based upon his position in Christ. This was impossible under law. The law only fired up the sin nature, cf. Rom. 7:7-11. These are better promises upon which the Church’s better and New Covenant are based. The law had no such promises. It was one hundred percent boot strap. You had to do it all yourself. There was no divine help. And there was no rest from work under law. It was all self effort.

The first mention of “promise” in Hebrews is also instructive to us, cf. 4:1. It says “Therefore let us fear lest at any time a promise, being left behind, to enter into His rest someone out from you should seem to come short (of it).” Jews are contrasted with Christians in the previous context. Christians, on the one hand, are partakers of the heavenly calling, 3:1; belong to Christ’s house, 3:6; and are come to be partakers of “the Christ,” 3:14. Israel, on the other hand, belonged to the house of Moses, 3:2,5. Israel could have entered the land of promise and had a rest but they were unbelieving and didn’t go in, 3:19. They hardened their hearts, 3:8. As a result, God swore by an oath that they should not enter into His rest, 3:11. The older generations died in the wilderness as a result of their unbelief, 3:16-18. Only those who believed could enter into that rest, cf. 3:18. There is still a rest remaining for God’s people. It is called “a Sabbath rest” that remains for God’s people, 4:9. This is not a rest by entering into land but a spiritual rest today. This rest is based on something someone else has done. It is not a rest due to self effort. Christ has done all the work. As partakers of “the Christ” believers have a rest in Christ. Believers can do nothing but enter into this rest which Christ provides and cease from any of their own work. He has done all that can be done. Believers cannot add to His work. Believers just need to cease from their own self effort. The one who has entered into the rest has himself ceased from his work just as God has ceased from His, 4:10. The believer is to be eager to enter into that rest, 4:11. This rest is where the believer’s High Priest is, having passed through the heavens, 4:14-16. This is where the believer should keep his framework of thinking, Col. 3:2. In the Old Testament they had a potential for physical rest by entering the Promised Land and ceasing from their own efforts. They had to depend upon God to deliver the land to them. But they didn’t believe Him. The promise upon which the Church’s better covenant is based is far better than the promises given to Israel under law.

The promises for the Church are anticipated ultimately with the completion of future tense salvation. The grace believer is born again to an inheritance which is undecayable, undefiled, and unfading, having been and still being kept in heavens for believers who are being guarded by the inherent power of God, I Pet. 1:3-5. This inheritance is not earthly but is in heavens where the Christian’s citizenship is located, cf. Phil. 3:20. Paul encouraged the Hebrew Christians to imitate or mimic those who are inheriting the promises through faith and longsuffering, 6:12. God shows the immutability of His determinative will to the heirs of promise, 6:17. The New Covenant to the Church also makes it possible for those who were saved out from the law to receive the promise, 10:36. The Hebrew Christians had had their goods confiscated, 10:34. They had need, having done the desirous will of God, that they might take into safe keeping, the promise, 10:36. They need to do this as Christ is coming soon at the Rapture, 10:37. The promise goes back to the fourth Abrahamic Covenant in chapter six. The promises the Church will inherit are better promises and are the basis for the Church’s better and New Covenant.

The promises for the Church are also the basis for a better hope. Whenever you have hope you have to have had a promise upon which the hope is based.

IV. THE CHURCH’S BETTER HOPE BASED UPON ITS BETTER PROMISES, Heb. 7:19.

The Christian’s hope is a better hope based upon better promises from God. The better promises are the basis for the Church’s better covenant. Paul compares the Christian’s hope with the hope of the Old Testament saint as he lived under the law. He writes, “For the law matured nothing but the bringing in of a better hope does mature, through which (hope) we draw near to God,” 7:19. He is explaining how Christ’s priesthood is different than the Old Testament priesthood in the previous context. Christ is a priest like Melchisedec, 7:16. His priesthood is “not measured by the standard of a commandment that pertains to the flesh, but rather it is as measured by power of an indissoluble life,” i.e. His resurrection life past the grave, 7:16. He couldn’t have been a priest on earth. He was of the wrong tribe. He was of the priesthood of Melchisedec, 7:16. He didn’t have the same rules as the Old Testament high priest had. He was under a better set of rules. The law was weak and unprofitable and “an annulment of the preceding commandment came to be,” 7:18. In verse nineteen Paul explains how the law was weak and unprofitable. It couldn’t bring anyone to maturity, cf. 9:9; 10:1. Those living under law lived according to the flesh as they tried to keep the law. They did it by human effort. All they offered to God were the dead animals of the sacrifices for a covering for sins and they offered them often. But Christ, being a High Priest after the order of Melchisedec, offered Himself when He offered His own blood once for all. His high priesthood is based upon His life past the grave. The grace believer has a better hope based on the promises of God to him. God the Father sees the believer as having died and been raised together with Christ and seated in the heavenlies, Rom. 6:3-4; Eph. 2:6. He is made alive together with Christ, Eph. 2:5. Now the believer is to count himself to be dead, on the one hand, to the sin nature, but, on the other hand, he is to count himself alive to God in Christ, Rom. 6:11. The Old Testament saints did not have such access to God. They went through the priesthood to God who was in the midst of the nation in the tabernacle and later in the temple. The priests went in with offerings to God, with offerings that could not mature them. But through the bringing in of a better hope the grace believer can keep on drawing near to God (the Father), 7:19. The grace believer has a High Priest who passed through the heavens, 4:15-16. The believer’s High Priest is the forerunner, who entered within the veil in the third heaven for grace believers, 6:20. The fact that He is the forerunner indicates that others will follow Him behind the veil. The Old Testament priest went in alone. No one followed him. But grace believers will follow their High Priest within the veil. Right now the promises, i.e. the promises of the fourth Abrahamic Covenant (6:12-18) with the resultant hope are an anchor within the heavenly veil where Christ has entered. The promise is that believers, being in Christ, are one with Him. Hence, the believer can live like Christ here on earth and manifest His life by a godly life, i.e. by living out his eternal life. The grace believer can cast his anchor up into the heavenly Holy of Holies. The Old Testament saint had nothing like this. His hope was mainly temporal and here on earth. The New Testament saint has been raised together with Christ and, hence, can seek out things above relating to his position in Christ, i.e. where Christ sits at the Father’s right hand. He can then put his framework of thinking on those things above rather than the things on the earth, Col. 3:1-2. (See Appendix A).

Paul had a strong desire that the saints in Jerusalem would demonstrate an eagerness facing the full assurance from hope until an end, 6:11. Promise gives hope and from hope, we find here, one can have full assurance. Hope is not something that is seen. For if a man can see it, why does he yet hope for it, Rom. 8:24. This is the hope they were to hold fast firm unto the end, 3:6. The hope they were to lay hold of was a hope which was set before them, 6:18. They are to lay hold of the confession of their hope without wavering. The basis of this hope is that believers are one in Christ. Positional truth gives a better hope, which does mature individuals. Elsewhere we see that Israel did have a hope, cf. Eph. 2:12, which the Gentiles did not have. But the hope of the New Testament believer is a better hope. The unsaved have no hope in death, but grace believers do, I Thess. 4:13. The Christian’s hope is a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ out from dead ones, I Pet. 1:3. Hence there is hope from eternal life, Tit. 1:2; 3:7. Christ indwelling the believer is the believer’s hope of glory, i.e. of matching up to God’s opinion of him, Col. 1:27. Christ Jesus, Himself, is the believer’s hope, I Tim. l:1. Paul wrote to Titus concerning the believer’s hope, “Earnestly expecting the happy hope even the appearing of the glory of the great God even⁸³ our Savior, Jesus Christ,” Tit. 2:13. The grace believer’s hope is in heaven based upon the resurrection of Christ. It is a happy hope, that is the Rapture. The promises of the fourth Abrahamic Covenant pertained to a singular yet multiple seed. As the multiple seed, grace believers have the hope of one day experiencing what they are and have positionally in Christ right now, for “we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone, the one having this hope (of being like Christ) keeps on purifying himself, just as that one is pure,” I Jn. 3:2-3. This is a better hope, based upon better promises that pertain to a better covenant. This hope is better than Israel’s hope. This hope pertains to Christ and heaven and ultimately of being like Christ. This better hope does bring about maturity. This better hope relates primarily to present tense salvation, while being based on past tense salvation and anticipates future tense salvation. In present tense salvation it does mature the saint.

The better covenant, based on better promises, providing a better hope, is itself based on better sacrifices.

V. CHRIST’S BETTER SACRIFICES AS THE BASIS FOR THE CHURCH’S BETTER COVENANT, Heb. 9:23.

“Therefore, on the one hand, it was necessary that the patterns pertaining to the things being in the heavens, be cleansed by these, but, on the other hand, it is necessary for the heavenly things to be cleansed by better sacrifices than these,” 9:23. The near demonstrative pronoun “these” goes back to the blood of the calves and of the goats, 9:19. This was the blood of the covenant (the Mosaic Covenant), which God Himself enjoined to them, 9:20. The law was dedicated with blood, 9:19. The blood was sprinkled on the scroll (of the law) and all the people, 9:19. At the dedication of the tabernacle, the tabernacle and all the vessels pertaining to the service were also sprinkled with blood in the same manner, 9:21. According to the standard of the law almost all things are being cleansed by blood and without the shedding of blood forgiveness doesn’t come to be, 9:22. In the Old Testament cleansing of the people and everything else was accomplished by the shedding of blood.

The Old Testament High Priest was appointed or constituted in the things facing God for the purpose of offering gifts and sacrifices on behalf of sins, 5:1; 8:3. He had to offer for his own sins before he could offer for the people’s sins, 5:3. Aaron was to make a covering on the horns of the altar once a year on the Day of Atonement with the blood of the sin offering, Ex. 30:10. This was to be carried on throughout their generations. Cf. Lev. 9:7; Lev. 16. These sacrifices were offered perpetually and couldn’t take away sin. The priests served in the first tabernacle but the High Priest went alone into the second (the Holy of Holies) once a year with the blood, which he offered for himself and for the ignorances of the people, 9:6-7. These sacrifices couldn’t mature the priests, who served, with respect to their conscience, 9:9. These sacrifices were offered perpetually every year but couldn’t mature the ones offering them, 10:1. If the sacrifices had matured the ones offering them, the offerings would have ceased for their consciences would have been cleansed, 10:2. God was not well pleased with the things offered by the standard of law, 10:8. The priests served in the tabernacle daily and offered sacrifices many times, sacrifices which could not take away sins, 10:11. Yet they offered the sacrifices according to the standard of law, 8:4.

But the Lord Jesus Christ, as a great High Priest, offered better sacrifices than these. As the Old Testament High Priests were appointed to offer sacrifices, it was necessary that Christ also had something to offer, 8:3. Christ became a High Priest of good things which came to be through the greater and more complete tabernacle which was not handmade, 9:11. He didn’t enter into the heavenly Holy of Holies with the blood of goats and calves but through the intermediate agency of His very own blood, 9:12. When He entered, He entered once for all. He never had to repeat the entrance to offer sacrifices like the Old Testament High Priest did once every year. He found eternal redemption. The Old Testament sacrifices did not provide redemption. Paul contrasts the Old Testament sacrifices with Christ’s sacrifices in the next two verses. “For since the sprinkling of the blood of goats and bulls and ashes of an heifer set apart the ones having been polluted or made common facing the purification of the flesh, by how much more Christ’s blood, who through the intermediate agency of the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, will cleanse our conscience away from dead works for the purpose to serve the living God,” 9:13-14. This was not possible with the Old Testament sacrifices as seen above, cf. 9:9. It is on the basis of His offering of Himself that Christ is mediator of the Church’s New Covenant. Christ offered Himself here upon the earth as He was lifted up from the earth on the cross and He also ascended into heaven on one of His ascensions to enter the heavenly Holy of Holies to offer better sacrifices on the heavenly altar, cf. 9:23. He entered into the third heaven itself to appear in the presence of God the Father as a substitute for the grace believer, 9:24. He appeared once at the completion of the ages with a view to the annulment of the sin (nature) through the intermediate agency of His sacrifice, 9:26. He was offered once for all to bear the sins of many, 9:28. The Old Testament sacrifices could never take away sins, 10:11. But Christ’s work was finished, never to be repeated, as is evidenced by the next verse. “But this man having offered one sacrifice on behalf of sins sat into perpetuity on the right hand of God,” 10:12. It was “by His one offering that He made complete the ones being set apart so that as a result they are complete into perpetuity,” 10:14. There is nothing more to be offered. He offered Himself a sacrifice once for all. New Testament believers are not to go on sinning spontaneously after they received the full experiential knowledge of the truth (how to have victory over the sin nature, Jn. 8:32) for a sacrifice generally concerning sins no longer remains, 10:26. Christ died for our sins and rose again, I Cor. 15:3-4. He will not repeat His work. It is finished. Christ offered better sacrifices than the Old Testament priests.

What Christ’s blood accomplished is of great importance. As seen earlier, the Church’s New Covenant is a covenant by His blood, I Cor. 10:16; 11:25. This is a covenant that accomplishes regeneration. God’s Church is a Church “which He purchased through the intermediate agency of His very own blood,” Acts 20:28. There the reference is to Christ’s blood as the agent by which He purchased His Church. The complete redemption, the forgiveness of trespasses, is also accomplished through the intermediate agency of Christ’s blood, Eph. 1:7. The believer has complete redemption in his position in Christ. The believer will also be saved from the wrath having been declared righteous now by the instrumentality of Christ’s blood, Rom. 5:9. This righteousness is also positional, cf. I Cor. 1:30; II Cor. 5:21. Believers, having been declared righteous have peace with God through Christ, Rom. 5:1. Through Christ, all things have been reconciled unto Him, because He made peace through the blood of His cross, Col. 1:20. Peace with God is accomplished through Christ’s blood. Gentile believers who were afar off from God have now come to be made near by the instrumentality of Christ’s blood, Eph. 2:13. Now grace believers have boldness of speech unto the entrance of the heavenly Holy of Holies by the intermediate agency of the blood of Jesus, 10:19. Christ set apart His people through the intermediate agency of His very own blood, 13:12. God the Father brought forth out from the dead the Great Shepherd of the sheep by a quality of blood of a quality of an Eternal Covenant, 13:20. The Lord Jesus has washed believers out from their sins by the instrumentality of His blood, Rev. 1:5. The blood of Jesus Christ keeps on cleansing believers from all sin, if they should happen to walk in the light, I Jn. 1:7. The blood of Christ was and is a better sacrifice than any of the Old Testament sacrifices. There are some who see no value in the blood of Jesus Christ. But the blood of Christ, as Peter says, is precious, I Pet. 1:19. It is of great value today as it has been offered on the heavenly altar and keeps on cleansing from sin. What grace believers have is based upon Christ’s offering of Himself and His blood. These are better sacrifices. They are the basis for the Church’s better and New Covenant which is by His blood.

VI. A BETTER AND AN ENDURING SUBSTANCE IN HEAVENS, Heb. 10:34.

“For you also were caused to suffer together with my bonds and you, yourself, received the plundering of your goods knowing in yourselves that you have a quality of better and enduring substance in heavens,” 10:34.

These Hebrew Christians had suffered the plundering of their belongings. Adolph Saphir describes their predicament. “Then arose another persecution of the believers, especially directed against the apostle Paul. Festus died about the year 63, and under the high priest Ananias, who favored the Sadducees, the Christian Hebrews were persecuted as transgressors of the law. Some of them were stoned to death; and though this extreme punishment could not be frequently inflicted by the Sanhedrim (sp.), they were able to subject their brethren to sufferings and reproaches which were felt most keenly. It was a small thing that they confiscated their goods; but they banished them from the holy places. Hitherto they had enjoyed the privileges of devout Israelites; they could take part in the beautiful and God-appointed services of the sanctuary; but now they were treated as unclean and apostates. Unless they gave up faith in Jesus, and forsook the assembling of themselves together, they were not allowed to enter the temple; they were banished from the altar, the sacrifice, the high priest, the house of Jehovah.” This was humanly speaking, devastating to these Christians who were saved out of Judaism and who had not gone far in their Christian lives. But in spite of what they had suffered themselves, as Christians, they co-suffered with Paul in his bonds. They were spiritual for they directed joy toward the confiscation of their goods. Yet there are things that God has provided for the ones loving Him, I Cor. 2:9. These are things the Holy Spirit has revealed having searched out the deep things of God, I Cor. 2:10. In Hebrews ten Paul reminded them that in the former days they had been given light, (cf. 6:4), 10:32. At that time they endured a great struggle consisting of sufferings. The Holy Spirit had given them illumination before their conflict. The next verse describes what happened to them. “While being made a theatrical both by reproaches and tribulations, (i.e. pressure situations), but this, on the other hand, having been made to come to be sharers in common with the ones living in this manner,” 10:33. It was as though they were put on the stage by their being publicly insulted and pressured. But they were not alone. They were sharers in common or partners with those whose lifestyle was the same. They were sharers in common, as Paul explains, because they co-suffered with him in his imprisonment. Now they had also received the plundering of their belongings with joy. They experientially knew that they have a better and enduring substance in heavens. Under law the promises were material and earthly. What they had in heavens was a better substance. It is spiritual. It is what they have in Christ. The promise of the first Abrahamic Covenant was land, cf. Gen. 15:18-21. The promises to Israel, then, involved temporal, material, earthly blessing, cf. Deut. 28:11-12; 30:5,9,20. Their promises were all earthly.

But the Church is not an earthly people. The grace believer is a pilgrim and a stranger here on earth, just passing through, I Pet. 2:11. The grace believer’s citizenship is existing in heavens, not on earth, Phil. 3:20. The grace believer’s inheritance is in a state of being kept in heavens as well, I Pet. 1:4. This is where the grace believer’s better thing is. This is where God the Father sees the grace believer in Christ now and were he will be in the future, Eph. 2:6; I Thess. 4:17. What these Hebrew grace believers in the early Church had in the heavens was and is better than what they had had confiscated from them. It was also better than anything the Jews or anyone else had to offer them. Their focus needed to be within the veil where the anchor for their soul was, 6:14-20. They needed to have their framework of thinking on things above like any other believer living in the Dispensation of Grace, not on things upon the earth, Col. 3:1-2.

On the basis of this better substance in heavens, grace believers are not to cast away their confidence, i.e. their boldness of speech, 10:35. There is great reward anticipated. This boldness is the boldness with which the grace believer can approach the throne of grace to find mercy and grace for timely help, Heb. 4:16. Paul referred to this boldness earlier in the chapter. The grace believer has confidence to enter right into the heavenly Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus, 10:19. In view of their troubles here on earth they need to hold on to their confidence (boldness of speech) and enter into the heavenly Holy of Holies in communication with the Father up there where their anchor is and where Jesus has entered as a forerunner, 6:19-20. They should also keep their framework of thinking on things above, i.e. their positions and possessions up there in the heavenlies in Christ. (See Appendix A). But they can also approach the throne of grace at any time as believer priests. In the Old Testament, saints had to approach God through an earthly priest as noted above, i.e. a priest who had to offer for his own sins and then the sins of the people. The High Priest entered into the earthly Holy of Holies. But the grace believer has access at any time from any place into the heavenly Holy of Holies. He enters through the blood of Christ which was offered once for all. Paul continues, “For you have need of patient endurance in order that having done the desirous will of God, you may receive the promise,” 10:36. The promise goes back to the promises to Abraham in the fourth Abrahamic Covenant, cf. 6:11-20. Remember the believer’s promises are better promises, 8:6. The one promising is one who is faithful, i.e. He is dependable, 10:23. The desirous will of God for these saints is seen in the context. It includes provoking one another to love and good works and to stop forsaking the assembling of themselves together, 10:24-25. They need to remember the former days and not cast away their confidence, i.e. boldness, 10:32,35. When they have done God’s desirous will for them, they can receive safely the promise. The ultimate fulfillment of the fourth Abrahamic Covenant, when grace believers are like Christ, will be at the Rapture. The Rapture was imminent in Paul’s day and still is today. In just a little while “the one coming shall come and will not delay,” 10:37. In God’s time table Christ is not taking much time before He will come. This coming is into the atmospheric heavens to catch His Church away, I Thess. 4:16-17. At that time all grace believers will be changed, I Cor. 15:51-52. All grace believers will be like Christ, I Jn. 3:2. What the grace believer is in Christ and what he will be when he receives his better thing, i.e. to be like Christ, is better by far than anything the Jews had under law and better than anything these Christians may have had or could have on earth. This will be the grace believer’s possession with the reception of the Church’s “better thing.”

God has something better for the grace believer in his future tense salvation than what He has for Old Testament saints in their future tense salvation.

VII. SOME FUTURE BETTER THING FOR THE CHURCH, Heb. 11:40.

“The God having provided some better thing, in order that they (the Old Testament saints in the previous context), apart from us receiving our better thing, should not be made mature,” 11:40.

God has foreseen or provided some better thing for the grace believer. The better thing is based upon a better covenant and better promises, which give a better hope. The Old Testament saints had promises. Their promises pertained to the earth and their life upon earth. The Jews had the promise of a New Covenant, Jer. 31:31-34. But they will not receive it into safe keeping until we receive our better thing. Notice the ellipsis. The witness was given through faith concerning all of these Old Testament saints in the previous context, but they did not receive the promise, 11:38. God has promised the Old Testament saints some great things which they have not yet received. Their promise is not the same as that given to grace believers. They do not participate in the fourth Abrahamic Covenant. They have different covenants. The Jews were promised a New Covenant which they did not receive. Their New Covenant is not the same as the Church’s New Covenant, which is a better covenant. The promises are different. The promises to the Church are better. The hope is based upon different promises. The Church’s hope is a better hope. The Old Testament saints will get their promise only after the Church has received her better thing. They will get their promise when they are resurrected. Some under law will receive a better resurrection, 11:35. The resurrection of Old Testament saints is not the same as the grace believer’s resurrection. Nor is it at the same time. It will be different. What they get will be different. Some will be raised to eternal life, Dan. 12:2. But grace believers receive eternal life at salvation as it is imparted to them by the indwelling Christ as part of the Church’s New and better Covenant, I Jn. 5:11-13; Heb. 8:6. The prudent in the Old Testament will shine like the brightness of the firmament, i.e. the diffused light of the atmospheric heavens, and the ones who turn many to righteousness (under law) will shine like the stars, Dan. 12:3. This is how they could receive a better resurrection. Millennial saints, who have a righteousness under Millennial law, will shine like the sun in the Father’s kingdom, Mt. 13:43. The resurrection of all of these saints is different than the resurrection of the Church. The Church’s promises are different than Israel’s. The Church’s promises are better. Israel’s promise is different than the Church’s better thing. To be better they cannot be the same. Church saints will shine like the glorified Lord, Jesus Christ. They will shine like the Son, I Jn. 3:2. He is dwelling in light, I Tim. 6:16. Church saints will be like Him as He is in His garment of light.

We want to come back to our verse, “in order that they (Old Testament saints) apart from us should not be made complete (or mature),” 11:40. There is an ellipsis in the verse as mentioned before. “That they apart from us” what? It doesn’t say the Church is getting the same thing at the same time. The ellipsis is clear. They didn’t receive the promise and they won’t be made complete apart from grace believers getting their better thing first. The Rapture must take place and Church saints be glorified first before the Old Testament saints are complete or mature. The Church’s better thing will be received with the institution of the Eternal Covenant, 13:20-21. The Eternal Covenant is a covenant made in eternity past in the decree between the Father and the Son. The Father promised the Son that if He would come and die, He, the Father, would raise Him out from dead ones and make Him the Shepherd of some sheep who would be like Him. The promise is that “by the blood pertaining to a quality of an eternal covenant, He would thoroughly adjust you in every good thing to do His desirous will, doing in us the thing well pleasing before Him through the intermediate agency of Jesus Christ…” 10:21. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Great Shepherd. The fact that He is a Shepherd over some sheep connects back to the fourth Abrahamic Covenant, Gen. 22:17-18. He, as the Great Shepherd, is the singular seed, cf. Gal. 3:16, and the sheep are the Church, the multiple seed of Abraham, cf. Gal. 3:29 (also note verses 27-28). As the Great Shepherd, Christ is also the Good Shepherd, Jn. 10:11,14. He, as the Good Shepherd, gives His life for the sheep, Jn. 10:11. He does so that He might take it again, just as the Father promised that He would raise Him, Jn. 10:17-18. The sixteenth verse connects this to the Eternal Covenant. “And I have other of the same kind of sheep which are not out from this fold (the sheepfold of religious Judaism, vs. 1): it is necessary for me to bring those also, and they will hear my voice; and there will be one flock, one Shepherd,” Jn. 10:16. One flock! One Shepherd! How is there one flock and one Shepherd? It is the fulfillment of the fourth Abrahamic Covenant. The singular seed, is Christ the “one Shepherd,” and the multiple seed is the Church, the “one flock.”

This is accomplished by Spirit baptism, which immerses grace believers into Christ. By imputation grace believers are seen by the Father to be in Christ who is seated at His right hand in the heavenlies. Grace believers, both Jews and Gentiles, are also described as having been created in Christ Jesus, Eph. 2:15 (see the Greek). This Eternal Covenant is brought about by making a seed of Abraham multiple and yet one. To implement the fourth Abrahamic Covenant another covenant is needed. This covenant is the Church’s New and better Covenant, which is by Christ’s blood. Christ by this covenant is written in the grace believer’s heart by the Holy Spirit, II Cor. 3:3,6. This is the result of regeneration. Christ being written in the grace believer’s heart by regeneration imparts His life, an eternal quality of life to the believer, I Jn. 5:11-13. This activates the grace believer’s position in Christ, so now, he can emulate the life of the Shepherd, being adjusted in every good thing, Heb. 13:21. He can reflect as in a mirror the same image as that of the Shepherd from one degree of glory to another degree of glory from the Holy Spirit, II Cor. 3:18. In present tense salvation the grace believer can experience this when he puts his reflective thinking on who and what he is above in Christ at the Father’s right hand. When he sees himself as the Father sees him, he gets himself out of the way here on earth and the Holy Spirit can now make up for his lack as He fills him, Eph. 5:18. Now he, as a sheep, can emulate the life of the Shepherd who is in him from one degree of glory to another degree of glory. But the Eternal Covenant goes beyond present tense salvation which relates to the grace believer’s better substance in heavens. It provides for the Church’s future tense salvation. By the blood of the Eternal Covenant the sheep will ultimately be thoroughly adjusted in every good thing to be well pleasing in His sight. This will be when the Church saints see Christ at the Rapture and will be changed to be like Him, the Great Shepherd of the sheep, I Cor. 15:51-52; I Jn. 3:2. This is the Church’s better thing. The Jews will receive nothing like this. Before they can receive their promise, the Church must first receive this, her better thing.

This brings us to the second part of the paper dealing with the contrast of these better things with the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.

The theme of Hebrews eleven is faith. Pi,stij occurs 24 times in chapter eleven. It occurs only 32 times in the book as a whole. The verb occurs only twice in the book and one of those occurrences is in chapter eleven. The subject of faith in this context is introduced in 10:22, where Paul encourages the Hebrew Christians to join him in drawing near to the holiest accompanied by true hearts in the sphere of full assurance from (ablative) faith. Access into the holiest was only possible for the priest and that once a year when he had to offer for his own sins and then the sins of the people, cf. Heb. 9:7. The grace believer can enter having boldness (freedom of speech) by the blood of Jesus, by a new, i.e. a freshly slain, and living way, by Jesus’ physical flesh, 10:19-20. The entrance of the believer is by faith. Grace believers have a High Priest there and as believer priests belonging to His household (cf. 3:6) they have direct access with boldness, cf. 4:16. Our hearts have been and are in a state of being sprinkled from a malignantly evil conscience and our bodies are in a state of having been washed with pure water. This washing is used of salvation, cf. Jn. 13:10 where those who were washed were contrasted with Judas, and Rev. 1:5- where it says He washed grace believers from their sins by His blood. Their entrance is based on their salvation by faith.

At the end of the tenth chapter Paul brings faith up again in view of the immanency of the Rapture, 10:37. The righteous will live out from (evk) faith. God’s soul has no pleasure in those who happen to draw back. But Paul makes it clear that he and the Hebrew Christians on their part are not out from those who draw back unto destruction. The contrast is strong, “but on the contrary we are out from faith unto salvation, i.e. preservation, of a soul,” 10:38-39. Paul’s soul, his emotional make-up, was under the control of his human spirit. Faith relates to the human rational.

This leads into Hebrews chapter eleven. Paul, having spoken of full assurance from faith and that the righteous shall live out from faith, now moves on to define faith. “Now faith is the substance, i.e. the under girding, of things being hoped for, the evidence of things not being seen,” Heb. 11:1. The concept of faith today in this Dispensation of Grace has not changed from previous dispensations. The content of faith has changed and the source of faith has changed, i.e. the fruit from the Spirit, but faith remains the same. When it comes to salvation it is based on faith in the promises from God which give the grace believer hope. In the Old Testament faith was also directed to the promises from God to Old Testament saints. Their promises were different from the grace believer’s. Their hope was different than the grace believer’s. Their object of faith was different from the grace believer’s. But their faith was faith. Paul moves on to describe the activity of different individuals living in different dispensations based on faith. Their faith is used as an illustration of faith. But bear in mind that their object of faith and what they were promised was different than the grace believer’s promises and object of faith. They all received promises as the basis for hope and directed faith, yet they all died as measured by the standard of faith, not having received the promises, Heb. 11:13.

The first dispensation we find represented in Hebrews eleven is the Dispensation of Conscience.

I. THE COMPARISON OF THE DISPENSATION OF CONSCIENCE IN HEBREWS ELEVEN TO THE CHURCH’S BETTER THINGS IN HEBREWS, Heb. 11:4-6.

There are three men who are used to illustrate faith in the Dispensation of Conscience. These are Abel, Enoch and Noah, though Noah has a foot in the following dispensation as well.

A. Abel’s Offering By Faith.

1. The New Testament statement.

Abel’s faith was evidenced by his offering to God. “By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice to God than Cain through the intermediate agency of which, God bearing witness upon the basis of his gifts, and through the intermediate agency of it (the sacrifice), though having died he himself is still speaking,” 11:4.

2. The Old Testament context, Gen. 4:1-8.

The first two sons of Adam and Eve had different pursuits. Abel was a shepherd of sheep, while Cain was a tiller of ground, Gen. 4:2. There is nothing said about God requiring sacrifice from them but Cain brought an offering from the fruit of the ground, while Abel brought from his flock, 4:3-4. It says that Jehovah glanced at Abel’s sacrifice but he didn’t glance at Cain’s in acceptance, so Cain became angry and slew his brother, 4:5-8. According to the New Testament he cut his brother’s throat as a sacrifice, I Jn. 3:12. Abel was righteous as evidenced by the fact that he offered his sacrifice by faith, cf. Mt. 23:35. His sacrifice was superior to Cain’s, for Cain had no faith, Heb. 11:4. Through his sacrifice he is still speaking. Luke includes him with the prophets, Lk. 11:50-51. But even though his sacrifice was better than Cain’s, the blood of sprinkling (Christ’s blood) of the Church’s New Covenant speaks better things than Abel’s. This is all we find about Abel.

3. The comparison of the Church’s better things in Hebrews to the sacrifice of Abel in the Dispensation of Conscience.

Abel offered his sacrifice by faith. His faith was not an on going thing, whereas the

grace believer has a better faith. The grace believer’s faith is part of the fruit of the Spirit. The grace believer is to walk by faith. The Church has a better sacrifice than Abel’s. Abel offered the blood of animals. Later on under law, when Christ’s offering of His own blood is compared to the Old Testament sacrifice, His sacrifice is much better, Heb. 9:23. His blood is also better than Abel’s, Heb. 12:24. Little is said about Abel’s salvation in any of its tenses. He was righteous as evidenced by his sacrifice by faith. God glanced at his sacrifice in acceptance. The grace believer is righteous, not because of anything he has done. His righteousness is better than that. The grace believer has become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, II Cor. 5:21. Abel had nothing that compared to the grace believer’s position in Christ. Nor did he have eternal life. He will get his eternal life like all others who lived before the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost, when he is resurrected, cf. Dan. 12:2. He did not have eternal life as a possession like the grace believer has as a result of regeneration. He was not regenerated. He was never indwelt by Christ. The promises of the fourth Abrahamic Covenant and the Church’s New and better Covenant did not apply to him. There are no covenants recorded that apply to him. The only hint of what he will get in the future is in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews. Among those who are seen in the New Jerusalem we find “the spirits of just men (righteous men) made perfect…” 12:23. The group that fits this description is made up of those living from Adam to Abraham. There is nothing else said about their future. Before Abel or any others living in the Dispensation of Conscience get their future tense salvation, the Church will receive her better thing.

B. Enoch’s Faith Evidenced During The Dispensation Of Conscience In That He Pleased God, Heb. 4:5-6.

1. The New Testament account.

It was by means of faith that Enoch was transferred from one place to another for the purpose that he should not see death with discernment and did not go on being found because the God transferred him from one place to another, for (by way of explanation) before his transfer from one place to another it was witnessed with the result that the witness still stands that he pleased God well and it still pleases the God,” 11:5. Now you will notice it doesn’t say where he was transferred to. We know he was transferred from earth but it doesn’t say where he was transferred to. Most commentators have him going to heaven. After all, isn’t that where everybody goes? John makes it clear as he wrote these words of the Lord Jesus, “No man hath ascended up to the heaven, except He that came down out from the heaven, i.e. the Son of Man which is in the heaven, Jn. 3:13. On the authority of Scripture, we can say that Enoch did not go to heaven but would have gone to the heart of the earth without seeing physical death with discernment. Somehow he was moved into his intermediate body without dying first. Before Christ’s cross work, men went to the heart of the earth at death, which was known as Paradise, i.e. Abraham’s Bosom, cf. Gen. 37:35; Lk. 16:22; 23:43. Paul continues in Hebrews eleven, “For without faith it is impossible to please God well, for it is necessary for the one coming to God to believe that He is and He is come to be a rewarder for the ones seeking Him out,” 11:6. This verse explains how Enoch was well pleasing to God in the Dispensation of Conscience. He believed in God’s being and he was literally seeking out God. This doesn’t apply to the Dispensation of Grace, for there is “none that seeketh out God,” Rom. 3:11.

2. The Old Testament account, Gen. 5:21-24.

Enoch, having sought God out, literally walked with God. He walked with the

pre-incarnate Son of God as He appeared in humanoid form, Gen. 5:22. He “walked with God and he was not, for God took him.” The New Testament says God transferred him from one place to another. He transferred him from the earth to the temporary abode of the departed Old Testament saints. To do so he had to give him an intermediate body without seeing death with discernment.

There really is no promise given in the Old Testament context concerning Enoch. Whatever the promise was, he had faith in it. In the New Testament we find that with faith he could please God well but that is all that is said.

3. The comparison of the better things of Hebrews to Enoch.

The faith Enoch had was of human origination. It was faith in his present tense salvation, evidencing that he did have a previous faith for past tense salvation. It was not on a par with the grace believer’s attitude of faith, which is part of the fruit from the Spirit. There was no covenant, no expressed promise, no hope expressed, no reference to sacrifices, no substance and no thing that applied to Enoch or anyone else under Conscience. The better things of Hebrews are better and there is nothing comparable between Conscience and Grace.

C. Noah’s Faith Demonstrated In The Dispensation Of Conscience, Heb. 11:7.

1. The New Testament Account.

“By faith, Noah having been warned generally concerning the things not yet being seen, having stood in awe he prepared an ark for a quality of deliverance of his house, through which he condemned the world and came to be an heir of the righteousness measured by faith,” 11:7.

Noah comes in at the end of Conscience and becomes the steward of the Dispensation of Human Government. So he fits under both dispensations. God warned him concerning the flood and told him to build an ark, which he did. This he did by faith and became an heir of a righteousness measured by faith.

2. The Old Testament Account, Gen. 6:8f.

It says that Noah found “grace,” i.e. “favor” in the Old Testament, in the sight of Jehovah, Gen. 6:8. He didn’t die in the flood. He was a righteous and complete man and he also walked with God, Gen. 6:9. He was to make an ark, Gen. 6:14. God cut a covenant with him that he and his family wouldn’t drown in the coming flood, Gen. 6:18. He and his family and the animals on the ark with him would survive the flood, Gen. 6:19. He built the ark as God had told him to do, Gen. 6:22. He and his family and the animals entered the ark, Gen. 7:7-9,13. By faith Noah built the ark. He and all those in the ark with him were delivered from the flood alive, Gen. 7:23. The whole human race died off in the flood except for Noah and his family.

3. The comparison of Noah under the Dispensation of Conscience to the better things in Hebrews.

The areas of comparison involve a covenant, a promise, a hope and faith. The covenant God made with Noah involved physical deliverance in time. He and his family were promised that they would not drown, Gen. 6:18. The promise of preservation gave him a hope based upon the promise of God that he and his family would be spared. By human generated faith he did what God had told him to do. In comparison New Testament believers have a New and better Covenant. Noah was not regenerated nor was he a partaker of the promises of the fourth Abrahamic Covenant which had not been cut yet. He will never be like Christ.

Noah now steps into the Dispensation of Human Government.

II. THE COMPARISON OF THE BETTER THINGS IN HEBREWS TO NOAH IN THE DISPENSATION OF HUMAN GOVERNMENT, Heb. 11:7.

A. The Old Testament Background.

Though the description in Hebrews eleven fits under the Dispensation of Conscience, Noah had one foot in both dispensations. The waters went down and when Noah and his family left the ark, as God told them to go out from the ark, Gen. 8:15ff. Noah built an altar when he left the ark and offered sacrifices to God, Gen. 8:20-22. It is at this time that the Dispensation of Human Government begins. The whole human race died off except for Noah and his family. God told Noah to “Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth,” Gen. 9:1,7. God then established a rule. You kill a man and you die at man’s hand, Gen. 9:5-6. This involved men organizing and carrying out capitol punishment. God spoke to Noah again and established a second covenant with him promising that He would never destroy the earth again with a flood, Gen. 9:8-17. God put the rainbow in the sky as the sign of the covenant, Gen. 9:16.

B. The Comparison Of Noah In The Dispensation Of Human Government With The Better Things In Hebrews.

The differences between Noah under the Dispensation of Conscience and under the Dispensation of Human Government are the offering of sacrifices, a new rule involving man governing man and a second covenant. We begin with the sacrifices. Noah offered animal sacrifices to God. All that was said in the first part of the paper concerning better sacrifices for the Church apply here also. Noah wasn’t offering for sin. It doesn’t say so. But his offering was a sweet savor to Jehovah and He said that He would not curse the ground again for men, Gen. 8:21-22. This sets up the basis, then, for the next covenant. When one compares the offering of animals to Christ’s offering of Himself there is no comparison. Christ’s offering of Himself as a sacrifice was better than any animal sacrifice. The second Noahic Covenant was an inferior covenant based upon inferior promises, providing an inferior hope. Noah’s second covenant like the first dealt with promises relating to physical blessing on earth in time. God would never again destroy the earth with a flood. This is a good promise for the human race and it gives hope on earth. But the Church’s New Covenant is a better covenant. The promises of the fourth Abrahamic Covenant, which apply to Christ and the Church, are better than the promises to Noah. The Church’s hope is better. Noah’s future will not be the same as the Church’s future. What is in store for the Church is better. Hebrews eleven only deals with Noah’s act of faith when he built the ark and spared his family. He became an heir of a quality of righteousness measured by faith. What he inherited was the inhabited world as he was spared and sent forth to multiply and fill full the earth.

The next dispensation began with personal promises to Abraham while he was at home in Ur of the Chaldees, Gen. 12.

III. THE COMPARISON OF THE BETTER THINGS OF HEBREWS WITH THE DISPENSATION OF PROMISE IN HEBREWS ELEVEN, Heb. 11:8-23.

A. Abraham’s Departure From His Homeland By Faith, 11:8.

1. The commentary in Hebrews.

When God called Abram to leave Ur of the Chaldees, by faith he obeyed God and went out to a place which he was about to receive for an inheritance even though he wasn’t acquainted with where he was going. There are two instances in Abraham’s life where he did something by faith. He left Ur and he offered up Isaac.

2. The Old Testament background, Gen. 12:1; 15:6.

Jehovah had previously told Abram to leave his country, his relatives, and his father’s house and go to a land He would show him. God appeared to him while he was still in Mesopotamia, Acts 7:2. Abram left but not as God had told him to. God brought him out of Ur, Gen. 15:2. God caused him to depart, Gen. 20:13. He didn’t depart alone. He went to Haran and lived there with his father and his nephew, Gen. 11:31-32. It was only after his father died that he went into the land of Canaan, Gen. 12:4-6. But he still took his nephew Lot with him, Gen. 12:5; cf. Acts 7:3-4. He was not acquainted with where he was going. He obeyed but not right away and then not fully. He finally left Haran and went to the land. After he believed God, Gen. 15:6, he manifested faith. God didn’t tell him where to go but he went forth looking for the place God promised.

B. Abraham’s Sojourn In The Land Of Promise By Faith, Heb. 11:9-16.

Abraham, by faith, lived like a stranger, a so-journer, in the land of promise, similar to a “strange” country. He settled down and was at home in tents with Isaac and Jacob who were co-heirs concerning the same promise. The promise came in the first Abrahamic Covenant, Gen. 15:18-21. Abraham didn’t hear what God said because he was asleep at the time God spoke. He went into the land on the basis of what God had told him before, i.e. to go into a land He would show him. When he came to the land, he lived like a foreigner, moving around from one place to another, while living in tents as did his son and grandson. He never got the promise in his lifetime. “For he, himself, continued waiting expectantly for a city having foundations, whose artificer and builder is God,” Heb. 11:10. God had promised to show him a place. So Abraham was welcoming with expectancy a permanent city with a foundation which he expected God would build.

C. The Insertion Of Sarah’s Faith, Heb. 11:11.

Sarah was well past the age of child bearing and she was barren. Yet by faith she received the ability to conceive a seed and gave birth, since the one who promised counted her faithful.

The promise was given to Abraham that his seed was to be counted through Sarah, Gen. 17:19,21. The promise was heard by Sarah that she would have a son in her old age but she laughed at the promise, Gen. 18:9-15. The promise was fulfilled, Gen. 21:1-3, cf. vss. 4-7.

D. Abraham’s Offspring, Heb. 11:12.

Now the context turns back to Abraham. The “one” in the Greek Text is masculine. Though his ability to reproduce was in a state of deadness, out from him innumerable offspring were born similar in number to the stars of the heaven and the sand belonging to the seashore. Abraham in his old age generated Isaac and later on the sons of Keturah, Gen. 25:1-2. He would have a great seed. God had shown him the stars of the heaven and told him “so shall your seed be,” and this was when Abraham believed God and was saved, Gen. 15:5-6.

E. The Future Anticipation Of The Fulfillment Of The Promise, 11:13-16.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all died without receiving the promises. They saw a great innumerable seed in the future. But they all died without receiving for safekeeping the promise. They never saw that many children born to them in their lifetime. They wandered around the land as strangers and pilgrims. They just wandered around through the land and never settled down. But they expected a land, 11:13. They manifested that they were diligently seeking a fatherland, 11:14. The next verse is a second class contrary to fact condition. “And, on the one hand, if they had continued being mindful of that from which they departed, but they weren’t, having opportunity they would have returned, but they didn’t,” 11:15. They kept looking for a fatherland but didn’t find it. They didn’t think to return to the land they came from. Now Paul moves on to their present aspiration. “But now, on the other hand, they are stretching themselves out for a better thing, this is out from heaven, wherefore God is not ashamed of them to be called their God, for He prepared a city for them,” 11:16. They are stretching themselves out for this city from their location in Paradise at the time when Paul is writing. They are not going to heaven. Heaven is not a city. But God makes a city for them on earth. They were not looking for the New Jerusalem when they wandered about the land expecting a city, but now they stretch themselves out for such a city coming down out from heaven. This city is the heavenly city, New Jerusalem, cf. 12:22-24; Rev. 21:23-24. The reason they are stretching themselves out for it is that when the New Jerusalem comes down out from heaven after the Tribulation, they will receive their land of promise, cf. Gen. 15:18-21. They are waiting for that time when they will receive the land.

F. The Evidence Of Abraham’s Faith When He Offered Up Isaac, Heb. 11:17.

Abraham had received the promises that he would have land and a great seed. Yet, though he was put to the test, i.e. to not do what God told him to do, he offered his unique one of a kind son. Isaac was a unique one of a kind son, not an only son. He was the miracle son of Abraham and Sarah. Abraham offered Isaac who was the promised seed, Heb. 11:18; cf. Gen. 21:12; 22:1-15. He counted it to be true that God was able to raise Isaac out from dead ones. He received him safely in a parable. He didn’t understand the covenant God had cut with him but he did know that God could resuscitate his son after he slew him. He was not looking for resurrection. He didn’t understand resurrection as we do. Christ is the firstfruit out from dead ones, cf. I Cor. 15:22. But Abraham did believe God could bring Isaac back to life from the dead.

G. Isaac’s Example Of Faith When He Spoke Well Of Jacob And Esau, Heb. 11:20.

Isaac spoke well of Jacob and Esau concerning things about to come. Jacob would be blessed materially and he would have rule over nations, Gen. 27:27-29. He would be the lord over Esau, Gen. 27:37. Isaac went on and blessed Esau afterwards, Gen. 27:39-40. Isaac anticipated the future blessing of his sons by faith.

H. Jacob’s Example Of Faith When He Blessed Joseph’s Sons, Heb. 11:21.

Jacob blessed Manasseh and Ephraim, cf. Gen. 48:5,16-20. Joseph’s seed through his two sons would be great. Jacob, by faith, spoke well of them concerning the future.

I. Joseph’s Example Of Faith Anticipating Being Raised In The Land, Heb. 11:22.

While Joseph was dying, by faith he remembered the departure, i.e. exodus, of the sons of Israel and he gave commandment concerning his bones. He remembered his brethren that God would visit them and bring them out of Egypt and into the land He had sworn by an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Gen. 50:24. He took an oath from the sons of Israel that they would take his bones with them, Gen. 50:25. They were to carry his sarcophagus into the land of promise, where he would one day be raised to receive the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

J. The Example Of Moses’ Parents Act Of Faith, Heb. 11:23.

Moses’ parents hid him after he was born for three months. The reason was that he was an uncommonly striking young child and they were not caused to fear the king’s command. He was a good looking child and they believed he would live through the king’s charge to kill all the male babies, cf. Ex. 1:22; 2:2-3; Acts 7:20. God had plans for Moses so He had him spared in this way. Their faith was in the young child’s survival. There is no reference to the promise which was the basis of their faith.

K. Moses’ Example Of Acts Of Faith In The Dispensation Of Promise, 11:24-29.

Moses also had a foot in two dispensations. He was born and raised in the Dispensation of Promise and eventually was to become the steward of the Dispensation of Law. His faith is mentioned five times in these verses. These are all examples of his faith before the beginning of the Legal Dispensation. Therefore they fit under the Dispensation of Promise.

1. Moses’ faith evidenced by his choice to suffer with his people the Jews, 11:24-26.

It was “By faith that Moses having come to be great, he himself denied to be called a son of Pharoah’s daughter,” cf. Ex. 2:11-15. Moses was raised as Pharoah’s daughter’s son. As the adopted grandson of Pharoah, Moses was child trained in all the wisdom (as to quality) belonging to Egypt and he was powerful in his words and works, Acts 7:22. The event under consideration took place when Moses was forty years old, Acts 7:23. It came upon his heart to visit, i.e. to care for, the sons of Israel. He supposed that his brothers would comprehend that God would deliver them through the intermediate agency of his hand, Acts 7:25. God probably appeared to him and told him that he would deliver his people out of Egypt. He gave up his life of luxury in the courts of Egypt, by choosing to suffer together with God’s people rather than to go on holding the pleasures from sin for a season of time, i.e. temporarily, Heb. 11:25. These pleasures are from the sin nature (cf. the singular). He gave it all up when he went out to help the Israelites and slew an Egyptian who was mistreating an Israelite, Heb. 11:24. He had to flee for his life as Pharoah was out to kill him for what he had done, cf. Acts 7:24-29; Ex. 2:11-15. He could have enjoyed the life of a prince but by faith he gave it up. He considered the reproach of the quality suffered by “the Christ,” i.e. Christ the Head and the Body together, Heb. 11:26. The reason he was willing to do this is stated in the remainder of the verse where it explains that he was continuously looking, i.e. he turned his eyes from the riches of Egypt unto the reward. He hoped that he would be God’s deliverer of Israel out from Egypt. He did this by faith.

2. Moses’ faith when he left Egypt, Heb. 11:27.

It was also by faith that Moses left Egypt behind. When he found that news of his killing of the Egyptian who was maltreating the Israelite had spread, he was afraid and fled away from Pharoah, Ex. 2:15; cf. Acts 7:29. But it says here that he didn’t fear. When he fled Jehovah appeared to him, The reason he didn’t fear when he fled was that he endured when he saw the invisible one. Moses had seen the invisible God in humanoid form, for he supposed that he would deliver Israel, cf. Ex. 4:1,10. He had some promise to base his faith on. Yet, he left Egypt without delivering them. He left so he could escape death at Pharoah’s hand. He would have to come back to deliver Israel, which he did forty years later.

3. Moses’ faith when he did the Passover, Heb. 11:28.

The text reads “by” faith not “through” faith as the Authorized Version reads. It was by faith that he did the Passover, cf. Ex. 12:21-28. He also did the sprinkling consisting of blood, cf. Ex. 12:7,13,23,27. The purpose for the sprinkling of blood was so that the one destroying the first born should not touch them. Jehovah hovered over the houses of the ones who had sprinkled the blood and did not let the destroying angel touch the eldest son or the oldest male animal to kill them, cf. Ex. 12:23. Moses believed what God had told him and he slew the Passover animal and sprinkled the blood believing that Jehovah would hover over the house and protect it from the destroying angel.

4. The faith of Israel evidenced by their crossing the Red Sea, Heb. 11:29.

Paul now turns from individuals to the Nation Israel in the next two verses. By faith the Nation Israel went through the Red Sea. The way they went through was like walking through dry land which the Egyptians having taken an attempt were swallowed down by the water. The Israelites had to believe that God would part the sea and keep it parted as they walked through the parted waters on dry land so that they could be delivered from the Egyptians, cf. Ex. 14:22-36. It says that they were caused to believe, Ex. 14:31. They had no other choice.

L. A Summary Comparison Of The Better Things In Hebrews To Those Being Under Promise As Described In Hebrews Eleven.

As is true of the other dispensations in chapter eleven, the thing emphasized under Promise is faith. Each one living during this dispensation lived under the promises given to Abraham in the four covenants given to him. When we consider the Church’s New Covenant, it is a better covenant than the covenants given to Abraham. Abraham was promised land in the first covenant, Gen. 15:18-21. He was promised a great seed, to be the father of nations and of kings, and a world in the second covenant, Gen. 17:1-9. These were both unconditional covenants. The Church’s New Covenant is a better covenant than these unconditional covenants with Abraham. The Church’s New Covenant provides eternal life as a result of Christ indwelling the believer. The third covenant with Abraham and the fourth were conditional covenants. The third covenant was a covenant conditioned on circumcision to go on living within the nation, Gen. 17:10-14. The fourth Abrahamic Covenant involves the singular yet multiple seed, Gen. 22:17-18. We have seen that this is fulfilled in Christ and the Church, cf. Gal. 3:16, 27-29. Yet the Church’s New Covenant is new compared to this covenant and it is a better covenant. The Church’s New Covenant is better than all of these covenants under Promise. As a result of regeneration grace believers have eternal life. This works together with the fourth Abrahamic Covenant. The grace believer’s position becomes effective due to his eternal life. The Church’s promises are better than the promises given under the Dispensation of Promise. The promises to Abraham and his physical seed were earthly promises. The Church’s promises relate to heavens and a personal relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. Having better promises the Church has a better hope than did those living under Promise. The hope of the Church is a living hope and a happy hope pertaining to heaven. There was nothing wrong with the promises given to Abraham and his seed. The promises were good. Getting land is good. But the Church has something better. The Church has better things that accompany salvation based upon the fourth Abrahamic Covenant. Those living under promise never experienced these things. They were not available to them. The Church has eternal life as a result of the regenerating ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Church is in Christ as a result of Spirit baptism. These things were only possible after the Holy Spirit came on the Day of Pentecost. The Church also has a better substance in heavens than any of the earthly promises in the covenants cut with Abraham.

From Abraham to Moses before the giving of the law, Abraham and his seed lived under Promise. Examples of their faith are given. They had promises which gave them hope and they mustered up human faith to make those promises real to them. But theirs was a humanly generated faith. In many of the instances considered, these may have been their only acts of faith. However the Church has a better faith based on a better hope based upon better promises. Now the Church is to live by faith. The Church’s attitude of faith is part of the fruit from the Spirit. This kind of faith was not available in this pre-Old Testament time.

Israel could have had the promised land without the law. God wanted them to go in and possess the land. They could have entered into their rest in the land but they were un-persuaded, cf. Heb. 3:7-11. God wanted to provide the land for them as they came out of Egypt. He wanted to do for them but they wanted to do something by their own self efforts. They said, “All that Jehovah hath spoken we will do,” Ex. 19:8. As a result, God gave them the Mosaic Law to do. All of the previous verses preceded the Dispensation of Law. Though the better things in Hebrews are better than what was promised in the pre-law dispensations, the comparison of the Church’s better things are mainly compared with Law. The next verses of Hebrews eleven move on to examples of faith in the Dispensation of Law.

IV. THE COMPARISON OF THE BETTER THINGS OF HEBREWS WITH THE DISPENSATION OF LAW IN HEBREWS ELEVEN.

A. Two Specific Examples Under Law.

1. The faith of Israel evidenced at Jericho, Heb. 11:30.

“By faith the walls of Jericho fell, having been surrounded (or encircled) up to seven days.” The Israelites did as God told them at Jericho, cf. Josh. 6:1-20. It may have looked foolish to march around the city with the ark of Jehovah and the priests blowing on rams’ horns but by faith they marched around the city once a day for six days. And then on the seventh day they marched around seven times and gave a great shout and the walls of the city fell. God gave the city of Jericho and its inhabitants into their hand, Josh. 6:18. They did this because they believed God would give the city over to them.

2. The example of Rahab’s faith, Heb. 11:31.

We find here a Gentile woman who had faith and as a result her life was spared. “By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish together with the ones having been caused to be un-persuaded, having received the spies with peace.” Rahab saved the lives of the spies when they went to Jericho to spy out the land, cf. Josh. 2:1-24. She did this by faith in Jehovah, the God of Israel, because she heard of how He had delivered Israel out of Egypt, etc. As a result, she and her families were spared when the city and its inhabitants were utterly destroyed, cf. Josh. 6:22-25. James says she was declared righteous out from works, Jas. 2:25. Her faith was evidenced by what she did. She is the one Gentile used as an example of Old Testament faith here.

B. Paul’s Lack Of Time To Carry On The Narrative, Heb. 11:32.

Paul now summarizes acts of faith under Law. He was going to run out of time. He writes, “And what shall I say, for the time to relate in full shall fail.” He could go on and recount generally concerning the faith of a list of six more individuals, the prophets, and some others but it would take longer than he had to do it. Five of the six individuals lived during the period of the judges. We find Gideon, cf. Judges 6:11-32; Barak, cf. Judges 4:1-24; 5:31; Samson, cf. Judges 13:24-31; Jephtha, cf. Judges 11:1-12:7; Samuel, cf. I Sam. 6:11-13; 17:3-8:1; 12:11, etc.; and David who lived during the kings, cf. I Sam. 16:11-13; 17:37, etc. and finally the prophets. Paul had run out of time so he lumps these all together.

C. The Evidence Of The Faith Of Those Listed, Heb. 11:33-34.

The article used like a pronoun in the Greek Text at the beginning of verse thirty-three goes back to the list just given. “Through the intermediate agency of faith they themselves overcame kingdoms, they worked a quality of righteousness, they obtained a quality of promises, they stopped up mouths of lions,” Heb. 11:33. They conquered kingdoms, cf. Barak, Jephtha, David, etc. They believed God would give these kingdoms into their hand. They did righteous deeds. The prophet Daniel stopped the mouths of lions, cf. Dan. 6:16-23. “They quenched the power of fire, they escaped the edge of a sword, they were endued with inherent strength from weakness, they were caused to come to be strong ones in war, they caused armies of foreign enemies to turn in flight,” Heb. 11:34. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, as prophets, came through the fire, Dan. 3:9-30. Many survived battle and caused their enemies to flee. They did it by Old Testament faith

D. The Evidence Of The Faith Of Others, Heb. 11:35-38.

“Women received their dead ones resuscitated and others (of the same kind) were tortured not having welcomed the complete redemption, in order that they might obtain a better resurrection,” 11:35. Dead were resuscitated as in the case of Elijah resuscitating the widow of Zarephath’s son, I Kgs. 17:17-25. Also there was the case of the man whose corpse touched the bones of Elijah and came back to life, II Kgs. 13:20-21. Then there was the Shunammite women’s son brought back to life by Elisha, II Kgs. 4:32-35. Jeremiah went through torture on more than one occasion. He was put in stocks, Jer. 20:2. He was also cast into a miry pit, Jer. 38:6. Those who were resuscitated had died and revived but it was also possible in the Old Testament to receive a better resurrection than another individual, cf. Dan. 12:2-3. This is not possible in the New Testament. New Testament saints all get the same resurrection, which is a better resurrection than the Old Testament saints’ resurrection.

There were different ones who “received a trial consisting of mockery and scourging, yea moreover a trial of bonds and imprisonments,” 11:36. Jeremiah was mocked and struck, Jer. 20:2. Michaiah, the prophet, was struck and mocked also, I Kgs. 22:24. He was also imprisoned, I Kgs. 22:27. They bound Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego before they cast them into the fire, Dan. 3:21.

These Old Testament saints were also “stoned, cut in two, they were tempted or put to the test, they died by murder from a sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goat skins while being caused to suffer want, while being afflicted, while being ill treated,” 11:37. Stones were thrown at David, II Sam. 16:6,13. Others would have been stoned to death. Elijah was roughly dressed, II Kgs. 1:8. Many Old Testament saints suffered in these ways, i.e. they suffered lack, were afflicted, and were ill treated. These were not the kind of people the world looked up to. But notice the assessment in the next verse. The world system was never worthy of such people. “Concerning whom the world was continuously not worthy, wandering in deserts and mountains and dens, and caves belonging to the earth,” 11:38. Life treated them unkindly but the world was not worthy of them.

In spite of all the things these Old Testament saints went through, they will never receive as good a thing as the grace believer will get.

E. The Failure Of All These Who Lived Before The Day Of Pentecost To Obtain The Promise, Heb. 11:39.

All of the saints listed above never received the promise. The promise of Hebrews 6 and Genesis 22 in the fourth Abrahamic Covenant was not for them. But they didn’t get what was promised to them either. Paul had mentioned this back when he dealt with Abraham, cf. 11:13. Abraham didn’t receive the promise and neither did any of the rest who were used as illustrations of faith. Paul now summarizes and draws the passage to a conclusion as he writes, “And these all, though having been witnessed through the intermediate agency of faith did not receive the promise,” 11:39. They all had faith based on a promise and they acted on it. But though they received a witness through their faith that they had acted on their faith, they never received the promise. Now Abraham didn’t receive land nor did the rest of his seed receive the land of promise either. They believed the revelation given to them under law that God was in their midst, first in the tabernacle and later on in the temple. They believed God, who was in their midst, would provide what He promised them in their present tense salvation. But the ultimate promise under law involved the blessings of the first Abrahamic Covenant as it will be implemented by the “Palestinian” Covenant, Deut. 29:12-15. The blessings of the covenant will be fulfilled in the future. But what Israel will get and what the Church will get are quite different. The time of receiving what they get is quite different. The completion of the Jews salvation and the Church’s complete salvation will be very different. The next verse points this out.

F. The Dependence Of The Old Testament Saints Upon The Church To Receive Their Completion, Heb. 11:40.

The verse is elliptical as was pointed out earlier in the paper. We translate it thusly, “The God, having Himself foreseen some better thing pertaining to us, that they apart from us receiving our better thing, should not be completed,” 11:40. These saints, whether pre-Old Testament or Old Testament, did not receive the promise. The promise of the singular yet multiple seed was not for them. But they will receive their completion in the future, but only after the Church receives her better thing. They will safely receive their future tense salvation to shine like the firmament or like the stars. They will receive the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob then.

This verse teaches that the Rapture of the Church must take place before one pre- Dispensation of Grace believer gets their completed salvation. The grace believer will already receive his completed salvation when He will shine like the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

G. The Better Things Of The Church Compared To The Dispensation Of Law In Hebrews Eleven.

Hebrews eleven deals with the faith of Old Testament saints. As has already been mentioned, grace believers have a better faith by which they can operate. The faith that a grace believer can direct is of divine origin, not human. It is part of the fruit from the Spirit. A Christian who tries to live out of Hebrews eleven will fail, for the faith of Hebrews eleven is an inferior faith. It was faith, but it was human faith. Hebrews doesn’t use the terms “better faith” but when considered in view of other Scripture, the grace believer’s faith is better. It is makes real a better hope which is based on better promises. As for the better things referred to in Hebrews, they are all better than what the Jews had under law.

1. A comparison of the Church’s better things that belong to salvation with what the Old Testament saints of Hebrews eleven had.

The Old Testament saints of Hebrews eleven had the promise of physical blessings here on earth in time. If they kept the law, they would have health, wealth and happiness. God delivered many from their enemies. Many of them prospered. But some of them were ill treated and poor due to their treatment by their own countrymen when the nation was disobedient. The world system was not worthy of such individuals. The promises dealt with prosperity though. The faith of all of these Old Testament saints referred to above was self-effort. Their faith was humanly generated. It was all bootstrap. Their focus in good times and in bad times was on their earthly circumstances.

The grace believer has better things that accompany salvation. Better is not the same. The best the Jews could do was done from the flesh. But a grace believer has the potential to be spiritual. He has better things than what the flesh produces. He has better things that belong to salvation. These things go back to the fourth Abrahamic Covenant in chapter six. As pointed out earlier Christ, the Head of the Body, is the singular seed and the Church, which is His Body, is the multiple seed. This covenant did not extend to the nation Israel as the physical seed of Abraham, but to Christ the singular physical seed of Abraham and to the Church in Him. In Him, the Church is not promised health, wealth, or happiness here on earth. The Church has better things. The Church is not an earthly people. The Church is blessed, i.e. well spoken of, in Christ in the heavenlies at the Father’s right hand right now. This is where the Father sees the grace believer in the heavenlies in Christ, there at His right hand. The grace believer is complete in Christ. He has all that he needs for the daily living of his Christian life. All he needs comes with his salvation. In Christ, he has the means of having victory over spiritual enemies instead of physical enemies. He can have victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. As he reflects on things above, his mind is framed on his position and possessions there rather than on his circumstances here on earth. The Old Testament saints were focused on the earth and their surroundings there. The grace believer gets himself out of the way by framing his mind on things above. Then the Holy Spirit makes up for his lack of Christ likeness here on earth as He fills him. In spite of the circumstances the grace believer can experience joy and peace as parts of the fruit from the Spirit. His circumstances may be as bad as or worse than some of the Old Testament saints in Hebrews eleven but he can have a different outlook on these circumstances by framing his mind on his better things that accompany his salvation. He can practice his position here on earth then. What the grace believer is and has in Christ is much better than anything under law. As he lives by faith, he can face any circumstance of life better than any of the Old Testament saints in Hebrews eleven. He has the indwelling Godhead to depend on.

2. A comparison of the Church’s better covenant to Israel’s covenants.

The first three covenants with Abraham apply to his physical seed Israel. These covenants solemnly promised land and continuance in the land. There would be kings, etc. These promises were earthly and involved time. Israel was God’s chosen people and was promised blessing beyond any of the nations around them. When the “Palestinian” Covenant implements the first Abrahamic Covenant they will experience all of the blessings promised them. They are all earthly oriented.

The Mosaic Covenant, the law, directly relates to Israel and to Israel alone. This is clear from Romans and Galatians, as well as here in Hebrews and elsewhere. The law was a yoke of bondage and it carried a curse with it for those under it. They could live by keeping the law or they could die by breaking it. The only problem with the law was the people who were under it. The law did not save them.

In the future, Israel will receive a New Covenant, the New Covenant of Jeremiah thirty-one. This will be when God writes His law for the Millennial Kingdom in their hearts and be their God. This is all well and good. But it is not the same as what the Church is promised.

The Church’s better covenant is the covenant by Christ’s blood. The Church’s New Covenant involves regeneration. This covenant is better than the fourth Abrahamic Covenant by comparison. Christ is written in the believer’s heart by the Holy Spirit. The result is eternal life as a present possession. This is better than anything the Hebrews eleven people under law had. It is better than any of the covenants God made that applied to Israel. They won’t get eternal life until their resurrection, Dan. 12:2-3. The grace believer gets eternal life at the moment he is saved. This New Covenant with the Church is much better than the covenants applicable to those in Hebrews eleven.

3. A comparison of the Church’s better promises with the promises to the Old Testament saints in Hebrews eleven who lived under the law.

Hebrews chapter eleven does not identify the promises given to the Old Testament saints under law. For their initial salvation they believed that God was in their midst in the Holy of Holies. For present tense salvation God promised them emotional, physical and material blessings in time. For the grace believer there are no guarantees of physical and material blessings here in time. The goodness of God is experienced by both the righteous and the unrighteous, Acts 14:17. What the grace believer is promised is better. The grace believer can go on to maturity in present tense salvation because he has a better hope from better promises. The Old Testament saint under law worked for his present tense salvation to receive deliverance from physical enemies and calamity. It was all done in his own strength. The Christian cannot do anything pleasing to God by his own strength. His promises pertain to being in Christ. The work is done. When he reflectively thinks on things above, he can be Spirit filled. When a lust comes from one of his three spiritual enemies he can have victory. When the flesh calls with a lust, he can count himself to have died together with Christ to the sin nature and alive unto God, Rom. 6:11. As he sees himself, as the Father sees him, in the heavenlies in Christ, he gets himself out of the way with his framework of thinking on those things above. He then orders his life by the Holy Spirit and while he does this, he will never ever fulfill the strong desires from the flesh, Gal. 5:16. The Holy Spirit takes up the fight and He always wins, Gal. 5:17. The Old Testament saint did everything by the flesh. The grace believer’s promises and potentials relating to his present tense salvation are better when it comes to dealing with the flesh.

When Satan attacks the grace believer, by putting lusts in his mind, the grace believer has the potential to be strong in the Lord and put on the whole armor of God, Eph. 6:10-17. Then he can resist the devil, Jas. 4:7; I Pet. 5:8-9. He can’t do this on his own but he can as he is strong in his position in Christ. As for the world system, the grace believer is crucified to it and it is crucified to him, which relates to his position in Christ, Gal. 5:14. The world system is an enemy and the grace believer can say no to it, since he has been crucified to it, cf. Tit. 2:12. The Old Testament saint was promised wealth and happiness. These relate to the world system. But the grace believer’s promises relating to his position in Christ are neither physical nor material. They are spiritual, enabling him to live a spiritual life that was impossible to live under law. The grace believer can live out his eternal life right now from one degree of glory to another degree of glory from the Spirit, II Cor. 3:18. The grace believer’s promises are better than those under law, as they relate to his present tense salvation.

The grace believer’s promises are also better with respect to his future tense salvation. Those living under law in Hebrews eleven will ultimately receive land on the new earth. The Church will be in heavens with Christ and will be like Christ. They will inherit a heavenly inheritance. Their promises relating to the future are so much better than those promised to the Jews.

4. A comparison of the Church’s better hope with the hope of those living under law.

Outside of the first verse Hebrews eleven doesn’t mention hope. But we know they had a hope because they had faith. From a promise one has hope and by faith it becomes real to him in his mind. The saints living under law hoped for land and peace and prosperity. Their hope, on the one hand, was based on the promises of God concerning land. The Church’s hope, on the other hand pertains to heaven. The hope of the Old Testament saint was that he could go on living on the basis of the High Priest offering for his own sins and the sins of the people each year. But the New Testament saint has a living hope based upon the resurrection of Christ. The sacrifice of Christ was a once for all sacrifice never to be repeated. The Old Testament saint could not mature under the law, but the New Testament saint can with the bringing in of a better hope. The grace believer’s hope is a happy hope. Christ will come and catch his Church away. That is a better hope than any hope based on any Old Testament promise.

5. A comparison of the Church’s better sacrifices with the sacrifices required of those in Hebrews eleven.

Again, Hebrews eleven doesn’t mention sacrifices. But behind their daily and yearly existence was the offering of animal sacrifices. The Church’s sacrifice is the one time offering of Christ’s blood for the sins of mankind. As mentioned above, His sacrifice was a one time sacrifice. The Father was satisfied with it. There is nothing more that can be offered. That is better.

6. A comparison of the Church’s better and enduring substance in heavens with the substance of the Jews.

There is not much said about substance in chapter eleven. There were some who lived under law who did suffer want. But their focus was totally on earthly material prosperity. The Christians in Jerusalem, having had their goods confiscated, could accept that with joy because they had a better and enduring substance in heavens. The Old Testament Jews on earth could lose their goods just like these Christians did. But they did not have anything in heavens. They were promised land and prosperity. A Christian is promised neither. But what he has in heavens is o