How Is The New Covenant Different Than the Old Covenant -- Voddie Baucham

0:00 There is discontinuity between the Mosaic and the New Covenants as well. First, in the New Covenant, God Himself is our mediator. In the Mosaic Covenant, Moses is the mediator. A mere man is the mediator. But in the New Covenant, we have a better covenant and a better mediator. Hebrews chapter 8, verses 6 and 7. but as it is christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises for if that first covenant had been faultless there would have been no occasion to look for a second Hebrews 3.3 For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.

1:03 Christ is our mediator. God himself is our mediator. This is discontinuity between the covenants. we do have a man that stands between us and God's unapproachable light. But the man that stands between us and God's unapproachable light is the God-man. He is the second person of the Trinity. He is Christ Jesus himself who took on flesh, who wrapped that righteousness and holiness in flesh so that he could reconcile us to God in his unapproachable light. In the new covenant, our cleansing is not merely external. Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 to 22. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Yeah, there's a washing, but it's not the same. This is a washing from the inside out. This is not just clean up your garments on the outside and observe a few rules before you come into the presence of Almighty God, this is be changed from the inside out. Not so that you can come before the presence of God, but so that you can be indwelled by the very presence of God who dwells in unapproachable light. Oh, this is superior, friends. This is greater.

3:00 Beyond that. we find that God was never satisfied with mere outward washing. Turn to the right and look at the book of Isaiah. You'll find something very interesting. Remember we talked about progressive revelation, about God revealing himself to his people progressively over history and through time. And here, what we've got so far is clean your garments before you come in the presence of God. Isaiah chapter 1, go down to verse number 10. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. By the way, Sodom and Gomorrah are toast. They're gone. He's not writing to Sodom and Gomorrah. He's writing to Israel and he's referring to them as Sodom and Gomorrah. He's making a point here. Verse 11. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord.

3:59 I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or lambs or goats. When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings, incenses and abomination to me, new moon and Sabbath, and the calling of convocations. I cannot endure inequity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Well, what's wrong? What do you need to do? Next verse. Wash yourselves.

4:51 Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the case of the widow. Come now. Let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.

5:23 We're not even at the new covenant yet. And already God is communicating to his people. Outward washing is not enough. This is what the Pharisees didn't understand. Matthew 23, 25 and 26. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate. but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisees, first clean the inside of the cup and the plate that the outside may also be clean. Jesus didn't say the outside doesn't matter. He said the inside has priority and that if you clean the inside, the outside becomes clean. Can a streetwalker walk into a church looking like a streetwalker? Yes, she can. but if God who dwells in unapproachable light redeems her and transforms her will she still continue to walk into church looking like a street walker?

6:26 You better believe she won't. She won't because what she will be communicating is a reality that is no longer consistent with that which she communicated before. We see washing connected with our very regeneration. In Titus 3, 4-7, we have the washing of regeneration. We have washing connected with our justification. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, that famous passage, and such were some of you, but you were washed. Washing, of course, is also equated with our sanctification. Husbands are to love their wives like Christ loved the church, and he gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. So in our justification, in our sanctification, in our regeneration, we see this idea of washing.

7:25 We are washed and we are made clean. And it is because of this washing that we are consecrated and made ready to come before the presence of God and to even be indwelt by the presence of God. thirdly in the new covenant God comes to us not the mountain it's amazing that in the Mosaic covenant here God says I'm going to come to the mountain and the people are going to see me come to the mountain but they can't come too close in the new covenant God's dwelling place is with men again 1 Corinthians 6 19 to 20 or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God you are not your own for you were bought with a price so glorify God in your body again the connection between the inward and the outward but it begins on the inside not on the outside.

8:32 Finally, in the new covenant, another has taken our penalty. you and I are not worthy to approach God who dwells in unapproachable light and coming as close to God as you and I have come requires death and that's exactly what was paid on our behalf so that we might approach God so that we might know God and so that God might indwell us. Christ died for sin once for all, the just for the unjust, in order that he might bring us back to God. All we like sheep had gone astray. Each of us had turned to his own way.

9:24 But God hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. It is because of the death of Christ that you and I have the privilege of approaching this holy and righteous God. It is because of that that we have the privilege of coming boldly before the throne of grace. Instead of cowering in fear like Israel of old who didn't want to get too close lest they be put to death, you and I come boldly and we cry out, Abba, Father. and we are indwelled by God himself.

10:05 Do you understand this? Can you comprehend it? This is why it is so wrong for us to look at a text like this and come away with, we need to do a better job of getting ready outwardly to come to church. Lord, help us. that's why we've missed the boat if that's the way we approach things like this and unfortunately this is often the way we approach things like this but when you understand this reality you don't come to a place where you say the outside doesn't matter no we've seen through several texts in the new testament that the outside does matter. And when the inside is cleaned up, it manifests itself on the outside.

11:04 not so that we can somehow come to a place where we believe we've made ourselves ready and righteous by what we've done but we come to a place where we understand that christ has made us ready and righteous by what he has done and we enter as children of the king when we come there is still consecration. But what this consecration looks like is being reminded of the sin that is in our lives. Being reminded that Christ has purchased our ransom and has forgiven us. Being reminded of the gratitude that we owe to him because he has made us right with God and given us the privilege of approaching God.

12:03 Coming before God in an attitude of humility because we do not approach God who dwells in unapproachable light because of our own merit, but because of the alien righteousness that has been imputed to us by Christ himself, having earned this right through his death on the cross. when we understand that we can no longer be flippant about approaching God. When we were in Israel, one of the places that I found fascinating, two places that I found fascinating,

12:42 were, of course, the Temple Mount, but also Qumran, where we found the Qumran scrolls. There at the Temple Mount. outside the temple. outside the steps, there are these pools, these pools everywhere. They used to wonder how they baptized thousands of people in a day. These pools are called mikvahs. And they are, you know, like small swimming pools with stairs going down and then coming out. And before coming into the temple, the people of God would come and disrobe and go down into these mikvahs and immerse themselves in the water and then come back out and put on new clothes and go in the group at Qumran was a group called the Essenes and the Essenes had these massive libraries and scrolls that were incredibly important to them.

13:47 But before they would touch any of these scrolls, they had mikvahs all around where they would immerse themselves. to become clean before they would come out and handle the Word of God. And it was amazing to contemplate the number of times that these individuals would go into this water and out of this water and into this water and out of this water before they would eat, before they would do this, before they would do that. this baptism of sorts that they would experience. All of this outward washing, being reminded constantly that I am filthy, that I am not worthy. Interestingly enough, we still, when we come to faith in Christ, experience that same washing where we go down into the waters of baptism and come out of them.

14:50 And the picture that we are painting is a picture of Christ being buried in his death and then coming out of the grave in his resurrection to walk in newness of life. And listen, just like Christ does not have to be buried again, you and I don't have to be baptized again to come before the presence of God. Because we are baptized into Christ. We are immersed into Christ. and because of that, His righteousness is our righteousness. His holiness is our holiness.

15:36 It is not something that we earn. It is something that has been freely given. Listen to me. If you are here today, and you are trying to be good enough for God outwardly. Let me tell you two things. Number one, you can't get there from here. It won't work. It'll never happen. You can't do it. and number two, you don't have to. Christ has accomplished that on behalf of all of those who will come to him in repentance and faith. Stop striving.

16:20 Stop seeking that which is already found in Christ. cease your efforts at self-righteousness look to the cross and right now recognize that Christ has accomplished that which you never could and right now recognize that what is required is for you to come to him in repentance and faith and turn from your sin and turn to Christ so that he might wash you so that he might make you whole so that he might justify you and sanctify you and that God by the power and presence of his Holy Spirit God who dwells in unapproachable light might indwell you and consecrate you fully what a tragedy it would be to walk away from a text like this saying to ourselves, we need to do a better job of cleaning up the outside of the cup.

17:33 What a tragedy it would be to miss what we've learned through progressive revelation as God has made this picture clearer and clearer and clearer until through the person and work of Christ we see fully what it means to be consecrated in the presence of the one true and living God. Oh, I would ask you to be consecrated today. I would ask you to be clean today. Not because of what you do to the outside, but because of what Christ does to the inside when you come to him in repentance and faith, pleading for and finding his forgiveness.