Hebrews 8:12Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Here is another sign: "From the least," he says, "to the greatest, they shall know Me," and they will not say, "Know the Lord." When was this fulfilled, if not now? Our teaching is known, while theirs is not known, but shut up in a corner.

Again, a thing is called new when it is second after the first and contains something more than the old. A thing is also called new when one part of it has been removed and another has not.

For example, if someone, in an old house ready to fall, left everything standing but took apart the foundation, we say that he made it new, removing one thing and inserting another.

"For I will be merciful..." (Jer 31:34). Washing us through baptism from the impurity of former sins, He no longer remembers them, since they have already been washed away.

"And I will be merciful to them," not toward their uncleanness, but toward their iniquities. That is, not toward uncleanness that occurs through nocturnal dreams, but toward sins committed by them according to the power of evil working in them (Jer 31:31-34).

Since this was sufficient to strike down those who held to the way of life under the law, he calls the prophet Jeremiah as witness to what has been said. He says: "For finding fault with them He says: Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

"It will not be according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, and write them upon their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

The iniquities, sins, and transgressions committed by them before baptism are meant. For by baptism everything is washed away and destroyed.

Was John born of parents already old because this signified the later birth of the spiritual New Covenant? Did it foretell the mystery of the necessary ending of the carnal law and the cessation of the old priestly observance?

For it grows old and aged, and what is becoming old and growing aged is near to vanishing away.

As for his birth from a father first rendered mute, here the Forerunner of the Lord's priests is born. This is because, through the Lord's manifestation, the tongue of the old priesthood had already been taken away by spiritual teaching.

What, then, is the Apostle's final word concerning the fate of that covenant, in comparison with which Christ's covenant proved better throughout the preceding arguments? First comes Jeremiah's prophecy (Jer 31:31-34). To soften for the feeling and hearing of the Hebrews the severe judgment concerning the old covenant, the holy Apostle first cites in deliberate detail the words of the prophet Jeremiah about the coming of the desired times of the New Testament. Then he concludes delicately and gently: "By the prophetic words about the new covenant, the Lord showed the oldness of the first. And what is becoming old and aging is near to vanishing away."

According to the prophet, this better covenant will have as its necessary foundation the forgiveness of sins, which God grants to men. In this consists its essential difference from the Old Covenant.

The Old Covenant also promised men communion with God, but it did not provide the means for attaining this communion. Before the eyes of the man of the Old Covenant stood the tablets of the law, accusing him of sins.

He found no possibility, even through sacrifices, of drawing near to the throne of divine grace.

Truly Scripture is divided into two Covenants. What precedes the coming and sufferings of the Lord, that is, the law and the prophets, is called the Old Covenant. What was written after the resurrection of Christ is called the New Covenant.

The Jews use the Old, and we use the New. Yet they do not contradict one another, for the New is the fulfillment of the Old. In both of the two there is one testator, Christ.

He accepted death for us and made us heirs of the eternal kingdom. We were blind, shut up in the prison of folly, and living in the darkness of ignorance of God and the Truth.

By Him we have been enlightened. He adopted us by His covenant, freed us from cruel bonds, and brought us out to the light.