Jerusalem Destroyed -- Hebrews 8:13

The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD stands as a witness to the truth of Christianity. The Lord Jesus had declared that it would take place (Matt. 24:1-2); and it did. God’s people did not fight against Israel in this revolt. In fact, believers suffered in Jerusalem with the unbelieving nation of Israel. As far as Rome was concerned Christianity was just one of Judaism’s many sects which they were determined to eliminate. That is why Christians and Jews suffered the horrors of Titus together in the slaughter of 70 AD.

Divine Judgment

The destruction of Jerusalem was not an act of anti-Semitism. Rather it was an act of divine judgment (Mark 12:1-11). The Son of God came in judgment upon that nation (Matt. 24:34; Luke 19:43-44). These things came to pass because the nation of Israel knew not the time of their visitation. They did not recognize the coming of the Messiah. The destruction of Jerusalem was God’s testimony that the coming of Christ was in fact what the book of Hebrews says it was -- The replacement of shadows with the Substance -- Christ himself.

One of the early church fathers, (Athenasius -- born 373 AD), wrote, “It is a sign, and an important proof, of the coming of the Word of God, that Jerusalem no longer stands…For … when the truth was there, what need was there any more of the shadow? And this was why Jerusalem stood till then -- namely, that the Jews might be exercised in the types as a preparation for the reality.”

The destruction of Jerusalem and of Judaism was visibly a declaration of that which is verbally declared in the Book of Hebrews. -- God has made the first old. He has taken away the first, that he might establish the second. But what does this mean to us? Basically, it means three things.

Shadows Replaced

It means that the shadows of the old covenant have been replaced with the substance, the reality of the new. The temple and tabernacle, the sacrifices and priesthood, the feasts and laws of the Old Testament were all shadows, types, and pictures of the reality in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ and his work as our High Priest and our Sacrifice. Our focus of worship is heaven. Our object of worship is Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled and replaced all the types and shadows of the Old Testament.

Heart Worship

The second thing is this. -- God makes Christ and his work real to his elect personally by the work of the new covenant when he writes his will in our hearts (v. 10). The fact that Christ has come means shadows are replaced with Reality. Old Testament types have given way to the Original, Christ our Savior. And it means that God almighty invades and moves into the hearts and minds of chosen, redeemed sinners by almighty, irresistible, effectual grace. He overcomes our resistance to the claims of Christ and makes us willing in the day of his power, by writing his will upon our hearts, revealing Christ to us and in us by his Spirit (2 Cor. 4:4-6). God stamps his revelation upon our hearts and thus makes us willing and eager to trust his darling Son and follow him. He works his grace from the inside out, so that we serve Christ freely, without the constraint and rule of law (2 Cor. 5:14).

God Merciful

Here’s the third meaning of this passage. -- God is merciful! He “delighteth in mercy!” He declares, “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (v. 12). The foundation and basis for all the promises of the new covenant (in verses 10-11) is the finished work of Christ: -- "The blood of the everlasting covenant" (Heb. 13:20). If Christ had not died for our sins, God could not be our God or write the law on our hearts or cause us to know him personally. All this covenant mercy flows freely and unconditionally to chosen sinners through the sin-atoning blood of Christ. This is why our Lord called the wine of the Lord’s Supper, “the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).

This is what the Holy Spirit means for us to understand. In Jeremiah 31 (five hundred years before Christ came into the world) the Lord God promised that he would do something new. He declared that he would replace shadows with the Substance, that he would powerfully, effectually move into the lives of chosen, redeemed sinners and write his will on our hearts so that we would serve him willingly, love him, trust him and follow him because we want to.

A Problem

But there was a huge obstacle. -- Our sin. -- Our separation from God because of our unrighteousness. How can a holy and just God deal with sinners in mercy? How can God be just, and, yet, forgive sin? The answer is that which was promised in the covenant, portrayed in the law, accomplished at Calvary, and explained in the Book of Hebrews – Substitution (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 3:24-26). Christ bore our sins in his own body when he died. He took our judgment. He canceled our debt. That means that our sins are gone. They do not remain in God’s mind. He has forgotten them! They were consumed in the death of Christ (v. 12).

God is now free, in his justice, to lavish us with all blessings of grace in the new covenant. He gives us Christ, and all things in him and with him, for our everlasting salvation and enjoyment. He writes his own will -- his own heart -- on our hearts so that believers are made to love, trust, and follow Christ from the inside out, with freedom and joy.

Christ is the Goal, the Reality, the Substance. When Jerusalem fell to the Romans in 70 AD, and the temple was burned, the sacrifices ceased, the priesthood came to an end, and the law was brought to its conclusion. When the scepter departed from Judah (Gen. 49:10), God said to the world, "Shiloh has come!"

Christianity is woven into history. It is not a mere set of ideas. It is about a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came into history, died and rose again. It is about God who both rules and intervenes in history to bear witness to his Son, Jesus Christ. The destruction of the old, Jewish way of life and worship tells the world that the Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, has come. That he has forever put and end to the old covenant and has brought in a new covenant.