“He Hath Made The First Old.”

“In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” Hebrews 8:13

It was never God’s intention for sinners to be saved by the observance of the laws and ceremonies given in the Old Testament. Those laws and ceremonies were intended only to serve as types and pictures of Christ to turn us to him. Now that Christ has come, any observance of those laws and ceremonies he fulfilled as our Substitute is worse than ingratitude. – It is idolatry!

A New Covenant

The opening words of verse 13 (“In that he saith a new covenant”) refer us back to verses 7 and 8 and to Jeremiah 31:31, the Old Testament passage being expounded in this chapter. If the first covenant (the law) had been faultless, if sin could have been put away by the observance of the legal statutes given at Sinai, there would have been no need for another. As Paul puts it in Galatians 2:21, “If righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain!”

“He hath made the first old.” -- If the second is new, the first must be old. This is very much the same thing we read in Hebrews 10:9. “He taketh away the first that he may establish the second” Heb. 10:9). Finding fault with the first covenant, it had to be set aside to make room for the new covenant, the covenant of grace to which it pointed.

The Old Covenant

Once Christ came, the old covenant was antiquated, out of date, and made old, made old by God’s design and purpose. Therefore, it vanished away. Why it is so difficult for people to see this I cannot imagine. Why religious people insist upon trying to mix law and grace is, to me, unfathomable. Why multitudes try to mix the old covenant ceremonies with new covenant ordinances, or old legal precepts with spiritual worship, is baffling.

Perhaps you are thinking, “How do people try to mix the old and the new?” – Those who imagine that by sprinkling a little water on a baby’s head (in a perversion of Christ’s ordinance of baptism), they bring their child into a covenant relationship with God, are not only guilty of perverting God’s ordinance but also of trying to maintain the Jewish law of circumcision. – Those who try to enforce sabbatical laws and mix them with the worship of God try to mix law and grace. – Those who would make believers live by the rule of the Mosaic law try to mix law and grace.

The Scriptures are crystal clear in declaring that the old Mosaic covenant is totally fulfilled and brought to its conclusive end by the gospel. In this gospel age, it is emphatically, the old covenant. “We are not children of the bondwoman (the law), but of the free (the gospel). Standfast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hat made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal. 4:31-5:1).

Gradual, but Sure Dissolution

“Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” – This sentence is translated in Young’s Literal Translation: – “He hath made the first old, and what doth become old is obsolete and is nigh disappearing.”

The Amplified Bible gives us the exact meaning of this 13^th verse. – “When God speaks of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete – out of use. And what is obsolete – out of use and annulled because of age – is ripe for disappearance and to be dispensed with altogether.”

The dissolution or disappearance of this covenant was both gradual and climactic. It began when the Chaldeans took possession of the land of Canaan and the ark of the covenant, which was a type of Christ. When the Chaldeans stole the ark, the temple was empty, void, and meaningless. The old covenant was waxing old. Both the civil government and the worship of the Jews was, during that time, cast into terrible confusion, exactly as it had been prophesied in Genesis 49:10.

When John the Baptist came, proclaiming “Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” asserting that the Messiah had come, the Messenger of the covenant promised by Malachi, that his kingdom was being established in the earth, he was declaring to all Israel that the old covenant, the old, legal, ceremonial Mosaic covenant, was vanishing away.

Then, once the Lord Jesus had finished his work, made an end of sin and brought in everlasting righteousness by his obedience and death as our covenant Surety, -- Once he was risen from the dead, and was exalted to the throne of God as King of kings and Lord of lords, the old covenant was completely, climactically abolished. When, on the Day of Pentecost, he poured out his Spirit upon all flesh, fulfilling Joel’s prophecy, God gave testimony that another order was established (John 4:21-26).

Yet, the temple was still standing in Jerusalem. The Jewish order of worship, in so far as the outward symbols of it were concerned, were not yet physically destroyed, as our Lord had prophesied (Matt. 24:1-2). However, at the time the Book of Hebrews was written, the time was rapidly approaching when God would destroy even the visible symbols of the old covenant. That is what is described in Hebrews 8:13. – “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”