Hebrews 8 and the New Covenant: Replacement, Not Endorsement of the Old Covenant
By W.R. Selvig
Hebrews 8 builds on the argument of chapter 7 and takes it even further. After describing the old covenant as weak and annulled, the writer quotes Jeremiah 31 to show that a completely new covenant was promised long before Jesus arrived. The very fact that God announced a “new covenant” means the first one was never final.
Hebrews 8:7 states it plainly: “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.” The text does not soften its language. The old covenant had a fault. It was not perfect. It carried within it the seeds of its own replacement.
The old covenent is said to have been faulty. It was not God’s perfect plan or will. Even Paul says that the law was brought in to multiply sin. Let me restate that. Angels introduced the law with the purpose of multiplying sin to create an environment where humanity could be accused and legally condemned. Paul said that when sin was introduced that he died. This covenant is not the fruit of the Father Jesus came to reveal.
Then comes the citation from Jeremiah: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not 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; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord” (Hebrews 8:8–9, quoting Jer. 31:31–32).
Notice the contrast: the new covenant is “not according to” the one made at Sinai. It is not a continuation, not a refinement, and not a mere fulfillment. It is an entirely different covenant, written on hearts instead of tablets, grounded in intimacy instead of fear, marked by mercy instead of condemnation.
The writer concludes, “In that He says, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13). Again the words are blunt: obsolete, vanishing. No perfect Father abolishes His own eternal decree. But a subordinate ruler’s system—temporary, flawed, and unjust—would indeed be described this way.
This is the disconnect many Christians overlook. If the Father Himself gave Israel the law as His eternal covenant, then Hebrews forces us to believe the Father intentionally gave something faulty, only to discard it later. But if Yahweh was a delegated ruler, administering a covenant of law that was always temporary, then Hebrews makes sense. Jesus did not abolish His Father’s eternal covenant; He revealed it. He set aside Yahweh’s legal system and replaced it with the Father’s relational covenant of grace.
The promise of Jeremiah and the argument of Hebrews point in the same direction: the law covenant was never the final word. It was already marked for obsolescence. The new covenant is not Yahweh’s improved law but El Elyon’s eternal design—a covenant written on hearts, secured by Jesus, and opened to all nations.
If you want to read more about the differences between Yahweh and El Elyon, and how the Old Testament was redacted to promote Yahweh as the only God, see my book, “The Yahweh Deception,” available at AbbaUnveiled.com.