In Hebrews 8:7-8 we read: “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For He finds fault with them when he says:

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:31-34 ESV).

Does this passage imply that the Old Covenant was somehow defective, faulty, or flawed? I maintain that our answer should be “No,” because the Old Covenant brought divine revelation and therefore the Hebrew Scriptures still serve a positive/authoritative function for the people of God today (cf., Matt. 5:18-19; Rom. 7:12; 15:4; 2 Tim. 3:16; etc.).

Then what is meant by “fault/blame” in this passage? We must consider the immediate context (chapter 8) and the broader context (chapter 10). Hebrews 8 is about the better covenant which is “more excellent than the old” and has “better promises” (v. 6) as defined in Jeremiah 31:32-34 (viz., Torah in the heart, knowing God, and forgiveness of sins; Heb. 8:10-12; 10:16-18). These better promises are new elements that were not completely revealed in the Old Covenant. In fact, the author reminds us in chapter 10 that the old sacrificial system was never supposed to “take away sins” (Heb. 10:4, 11), and that’s why we need Christ and the New Covenant (Heb. 8:6; 10:10, 12).

The New (Renewed) Covenant certainly makes the Old Covenant “obsolete” (8:13), but it does not make the Old Covenant unnecessary or defective — unless by “fault” the author is working backward and evaluating the Old Covenant based on the distinctives of the New Covenant.[1] In other words, if the topic of inquiry is soteriology (which is specially revealed in the promises of the New Covenant), then the Old Covenant may be viewed as defective.[2] But we know that the Old Covenant was not designed to solve the sin problem in the first place (Heb. 10:4, 11), and so this evaluation of the Old Covenant would seem to be unfair.

Perhaps then the problem (or “fault”) in Hebrews 8:7 is with Jewish interpreters in the first century AD who “attributed a soteric function to the law” and that’s why “its soteric faults needed to be demonstrated.”[3] Indeed, the ancient Israelites/Judahites proved the soteriological fault of the Old Covenant when they “did not continue in” YHWH’s covenant (Heb. 8:9; cf. Jer. 31:32), and therefore, the Lord “finds fault with them” (Heb. 8:8).[4] The “fault” of the first covenant lies with the people of God.

So, was the Old Covenant defective? No. It was designed by God to serve his good purposes. Through the Old Covenant, God revealed his character and presence for the goal of relationship. The Old Covenant was, however, incomplete from a soteriological standpoint because the “better promises” were not yet revealed through Christ. Through the New Covenant, God revealed more of himself, augmenting divine revelation through the incarnate Word/Torah and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Through his covenant renewal, God reveals his will in our collective heart so that we can experience God in deeper communal relationships because he forgives our collective iniquity (Jer 31:31-34).

Praise God for accommodating his creation and for initiating a covenant program whereby humanity can know him and become like him in a progressive relationship — all enabled by the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; cf. Jer. 31:34; Heb. 10:15-18; 1 John 2:27). The Old Covenant was not defective for what God intended it to be since it never was intended to save us. Salvation is only through Jesus Christ.

Notes

[1] On Hebrews working backward, see J. Goldingay, Do We Need the New Testament? Letting the Old Testament Speak for Itself (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015) 94; see also John H. Walton and J. Harvey Walton, The Lost World of the Torah: Law as Covenant and Wisdom in Ancient Context (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2019) 121-132, 154-160, 227.

[2] See Walton, J. H. and A. E. Hill, Old Testament Today (Second Edition; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013) 104.

[3] J. H. Walton, Covenant: God’s Purpose, God’s Plan (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 154. See also C. J. H. Wright, How to Preach and Teach the Old Testament for All Its Worth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 139.

[4] Cf., Deut 29-32; Wright, How to Preach, 154-158.