Paradigm Logic

But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises. Hebrews 8:6

Better – Good, better, best.  That’s the kind of thinking we entertain when we come across a word like this.  In our system of thought, when something is “better,” it implies movement away from something inferior.  I once drove a car that got 20 miles to the gallon.  Now I drive a better car.  It gets 30 miles to the gallon.  My better car replaces the former, less efficient one.  Is this the kind of thought behind the covenant imagery in Hebrews?  If it is, then the replacement theologians are right.  The Mosaic covenant has been abandoned and the new covenant of Jesus, the “better” one, is now in place.

Tim Warner acknowledges the covenant question is “THE most crucial question in Christian theology.”  His argument for the replacement of the Old Testament covenant employs this passage in Hebrews.  He says:

“One of the things missed by most Christians is a distinction between “principles” on which commandments are based and the commandments themselves. God’s moral principles never change. They are uniform from Genesis to Revelation. But, specific commandments do indeed change, and are specific to certain individuals, nations, or other entities. The context of a given passage indicates to whom the particular commandments are addressed. God is always the same. His character never changes. Yet, He has not always required the same things of all people. His dealings with people vary depending on His covenants.”

Yesterday we noted that the governing paradigm of historical Christianity is the shift from a God who is involved in the particulars of a specific people to a God who is really interested in universal Mankind and only engages Israel as a temporary means to accomplish a spiritual goal.  According to the paradigm, what really matters in the Bible is God’s creation, Man’s Fall, Jesus’ redemption and Jesus’ return.  All the rest is interesting window-dressing.  As we noted, this dominant paradigm in Christian thinking replaces the Holy One of Israel with the universal God of the cosmos.  It shifts the focus from the actual historical events of God’s interaction with real men to the archetype encounters between the Creator and His human creation.  It is about the eternal plan of God, not the temporal dispensation of Israel.  This paradigm loads theology with universal categories (like omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent) instead of actual historical occurrences.  The paradigm follows Man’s thinking about God rather than God’s actual involvement with men.

Warner provides a contemporary application of this massive paradigm.  For him, faith is not about the God of Israel.  It’s about the great God of creation, independent of God’s election of some minor tribe.   The only reason the Ten Commandments are still in operation today is because they are expressions of spiritual principles, not actual instances of divine legislation.  The Ten Commandments as covenant rules passes away with Christ.  Now we keep them because they are general principles of ethical action (cf. Immanuel Kant).

For Warner, “the Old Covenant has been completely replaced and superseded by the New Covenant. I see no way to escape this conclusion.”

But wait!  The author of Hebrews uses the Greek word kreitton, a comparative of kratos.  It means “more useful” or “more powerful.”  The guarantee of the new covenant found in the death and resurrection of Yeshua is “more useful” or “more powerful” than something else.  It is not “better” as a replacement of something else.  It is simply “more” of whatever the first thing was.  So, we need to ask, “What is it “more” of?”  And the answer comes directly from the context of this very verse.

Hebrews 8:7-12 quotes Jeremiah 31.  This “more useful” or “more powerful” covenant is the “new” covenant of Jeremiah, but that covenant is not new.  It is the same covenant God gave Israel at Sinai, renewed in the hearts of men rather than on tablets of stone.  Why is it more useful or more powerful?  Because it is written on my heart!  God doesn’t replace what He said before with something novel.  He just says the same thing in a different way.  Now His words are engraved on my very being.  His law becomes internal rather than external.  Nothing is replaced.  I just took the same old car that used to get 20 miles to the gallon and tuned the engine.  Now that same car gets 35 miles to the gallon.  The only thing that changed was the way it operates.

Warner’s paradigm doesn’t allow him to read the text for what it says.  His replacement theology requires the author of Hebrews to break the link between YHWH of Israel and the Creator God of human beings.  The message of the Bible cannot be Jewish in nature, so the author of Hebrews can’t expound Jewish theology.

But what if the renewed covenant has exactly the same content as the original?  What if the only difference is how it operates?  What if the Ten Commandments really aren’t general principles of ethical action but are simply the requirements of the Holy One of Israel?  Now what do you do?

Topical Index:  Ten Commandments, replacement theology, paradigm, Hebrew 8:6, kratos