James Durham demonstrates that Christ acted as Intercessor before His incarnation. He outlines the differences between Christ’s intercession in the Old and New Testaments, emphasizing the change in basis, relationship, manner, and impact. Old Testament saints had true consolation in Christ’s intercession for them in their life and death.… Read More Christ: The Intercessor of the Old Testament Church
The ceremonial law was abolished to promote the spirituality of divine worship. That service was gross, carnal, calculated for an infant and sensitive church. It consisted in rudiments, the circumcision of the flesh, the blood and smoke of sacrifices, the streams of incense, observation of days, distinction of meats, corporal purifications; every leaf of the law is clogged with some rite to be particularly observed by them. The spirituality of worship lay veiled under a thick cloud, that the people could not behold the glory of the gospel, which lay covered under those shadows: ‘They could not stedfastly look to the end of that which was abolished’ (2 Cor. 3:13). They understood not the glory and spiritual intent of the law, and therefore came short of that spiritual frame in the worship of God, which was their duty; and therefore, in opposition to this administration, the worship of God under the gospel is called by our Saviour in the text, a worship in spirit; more spiritual for the matter, more spiritual for the motives, and more spiritual for the manner and frames of worship.… Read More The Abrogation of the Ceremonial Law
William Perkins,Commentary on Hebrews 11:40,Works III, pp. 394-397 “God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:40). “For us”—that is, for the church in the New Testament, where note that God’s church and the state thereof in the New Testament is better than it was… Read More Five Ways the New Covenant Surpasses The Old
The intercession of Christ is perpetual. This perpetuity was prefigured of old by the constant fire on the brazen altar, by the daily holocaust of sweet savour, and by the perpetual incense—all of which were brought to a point by the burning of incense on the Day of Atonement. Christ is a nobler Priest, and He belongs to a more noble dispensation. He lives forever as the God-man. His is a personal life; but He also lives forever officially as Priest. And His office is therefore not transferable. He exercises an unchangeable priesthood. As His pleas are of everlasting force, so He ever lives to plead them. His meritorious undying love is constant, fervent, and unchangeable. His fulfillment of the conditions of the Covenant is an enduring ground for pleading the promises.… Read More Christ’s Intercession In The Old & New Testaments
Zacharias Ursinus Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, pp. 96-101. OF THE COVENANT OF GOD. It has been shown, that a Mediator is one who reconciles parties that are at variance, as God and men. This reconciliation is called in the Scriptures a Covenant, which has particular reference to the Mediator, inasmuch as every mediator is… Read More Comparison of the Old and New Covenants
…he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease… (Daniel 9:27) For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim. (Hosea 3:4). In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made… Read More Ceremonial Law Fading Away
John Owen, Exposition of Hebrews “For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.” Hebrews 4:2 It is supposed and granted that the gospel was preached unto the people in the wilderness. The apostle… Read More The Gospel was Preached unto Israel in the Wilderness
Samuel Rutherford, The Covenant of Life Opened, pp. 347-348. Dr. Crispe [objects]: “in Jeremiah 31; Ezekiel 36; Hebrews 8 and other passages where the tenor of the Covenant is contained, there is no word of a tie, there is not one word that God saith to man, thou must do this. But God takes all… Read More Jeremiah 31: The New Covenant
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