The problem with the old covenant was not primarily with the covenant but with the covenant’s people. They were sinners who kept on sinning. They had ways to deal with their sin, but only in copies and shadows. Never the real deal. In short, God made promises to and about these people in the old covenant. But one thing he never promised was to produce any true knowledge of himself within them. How are the promises of the new covenant any better? Well, in addition to having a means for true (and not merely foreshadowed) forgiveness (Heb 8:12), God actually promised to make his new people into the sort of people he requires them to be (Heb 8:10-11).

There can be no dispute: The main point of the middle section of Hebrews (roughly chapters 3-10) is that, in Jesus, we have a great high priest:
Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.
Hebrews 8:1-2
Here is one of the rare places in the Bible where the author tells us straight out what is his main point. We don’t have to guess, read between the lines, or check an expositor’s work. Make sure to savor this moment.
The Ministry They Copy
Having savored that moment, we ought to notice that this high priest, who serves the Father in heaven, rules all things. His ministry is more effective than any other. He’s been tremendously successful at what he does.
And don’t fail to observe the precise wording of Heb 8:1 — that priest is the one we have. As long as we rely on him to get us through (Heb 4:14).
He is not like all those other priests on earth, who are merely copycat priests serving God in a copycat place (Heb 8:3-6). Those Jewish priests under the old covenant were crucial components of God’s revelation of himself and his relationship with his people. But that’s primarily because they were copying the priesthood of Jesus.
And now that the bona fide original has appeared, there’s no further need for copycats.
Imagine if your church started a ministry of Elvis impersonation. You could dress in bright sequined leather, wearing bushy wigs and sunglasses. You could help children memorize Bible verses to the tune of “Love Me Tender,” and really connect with older generations as well.
But now imagine that Elvis himself presented himself alive and showed up at your ministry of impersonation. Would you let him join the troupe?
Of course you wouldn’t! First off, he’d show everyone up. And second: it would turn the whole thing into a mockery. The point of impersonation is that you’re trying to be like someone or something else. It would ruin the whole point of it if you’ve got the original present. You can’t impersonate yourself.
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Written by John A. Sparks |
Monday, March 13, 2023
Literally on the same day in 2017 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ original case involving the two gay men, Scardina placed an order with Masterpiece Cakeshop for a cake to celebrate both Scardina’s birthday and transition to being a woman. Scardina first placed the order without mentioning the cake’s purpose, noting only that the cake was to be blue on the outside and pink on the inside. But during a second call on the same day, Scardina made clear the purpose of the cake for a trans celebration. At that point an employee of Masterpiece said the business could not bake such a cake. Phillips explained the reason why in testimony. He believed “that God designed people as male and female, that a person’s gender is biologically determined.” Making such a cake to celebrate a gender transition would violate his religious beliefs and force him to express views that were contrary to those beliefs. Scardina filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. 

In 1950, Eileen Barton’s rendition of “If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake” became #1 on the Billboard charts. Until 2012, that song might well have been Colorado baker Jack Phillips’ favorite. But in that year, his three-decade love of baking cakes and other baked goods for those who patronized his Lakewood, Colorado Masterpiece Cakeshop turned into a decade-long nightmare of legal and cultural battles.
Today, Phillips would like nothing better than to return to the quiet hum of his baking establishment’s kitchen. Why isn’t that possible? Why can’t he resume preparing confections for customers without members of sexual minority groups demanding that he adopt and help celebrate their own peculiar view of human sexuality? Why is the state of Colorado menacing an upright citizen like Phillips with criminal complaints and fines?
Let’s briefly trace Jack Phillips’ unhappy legal trek.
In the 1970s, Phillips became a Christian and was convicted that his faith put limits on the types of customized cakes he would bake in his own private business. For example, he refused to portray witches and ghosts for Halloween or sexually suggestive images. In keeping with his Christian beliefs that marriage should be between one man and one woman, he concluded that he could not be part of the celebration of same-sex unions by artistically designing custom wedding cakes for such occasions.
Phillips’ faith commitments did not pose problems for him until 2012 when he respectfully declined a request from two gay men to bake a custom wedding cake for them. That got him in trouble with Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA) and the Colorado Civil Right Commission after the pair filed a claim alleging that Phillips discriminated against them because of their sexual orientation. Phillips defended his refusal, saying that his religious liberty and his freedom of speech, including the right not to be compelled to express a certain message, were being violated. To his chagrin, the administrative law judge hearing the case ruled that Phillips either had to bake cakes for all weddings or none. Furthermore, the judge’s order required Phillips to “retrain” his staff to accept requests involving gay weddings, and to report, over a two-year period, all cake orders he refused.
To make matter worse, when Phillips appealed, the Colorado Court of Appeals supported the commission and the law judge’s findings and remedies and the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court. There, in 2018, the Supreme Court found in favor of Phillips, but only on the weakest possible grounds. Some of the Colorado Civil Rights Commissioners made outlandish public statements during proceedings about Phillips’ religious beliefs, referring to them as “despicable pieces of rhetoric” which allowed him to use his “religion to hurt others.” There were other similar statements. All of this was too much for the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Anthony Kennedy, along with six other justices who joined or concurred in his opinion, said that “the Commission’s treatment of Phillip’s case violated the state’s duty under the First Amendment not to base laws or regulations on hostility to a religion or a religious viewpoint.” (Keep in mind that Justice Kennedy wrote the Obergefell decision making same-sex marriage the law of the land.)
The Kennedy opinion, though a temporary victory for Phillips, was based on flagrant and foolish public misconduct by the Colorado governmental body hearing his case, and which was not likely to be repeated. Unfortunately, Kennedy’s opinion failed to address the central issue of whether the recently devised use of “public accommodation laws,” like the CADA law, to advance the claims of sexual minorities for equal treatment, should override the long-standing constitutional rights of speech and free exercise of religion. The court’s failure to face head-on that set of issues meant that providers like Phillips would be open to further legal challenges. That is precisely what has happened. A transgender woman—Autumn Scardina—who was an attorney, is doggedly pursuing Phillips and Masterpiece by every legal means available.
Literally on the same day in 2017 when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Phillips’ original case involving the two gay men, Scardina placed an order with Masterpiece Cakeshop for a cake to celebrate both Scardina’s birthday and transition to being a woman. Scardina first placed the order without mentioning the cake’s purpose, noting only that the cake was to be blue on the outside and pink on the inside. But during a second call on the same day, Scardina made clear the purpose of the cake for a trans celebration. At that point an employee of Masterpiece said the business could not bake such a cake. Phillips explained the reason why in testimony. He believed “that God designed people as male and female, that a person’s gender is biologically determined.” Making such a cake to celebrate a gender transition would violate his religious beliefs and force him to express views that were contrary to those beliefs.
Scardina filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Before that case could be heard, however, Phillips and Masterpiece brought an action in federal court against Colorado. Eventually, Phillips and Colorado settled by each withdrawing their respective suits. But the dispute was not ended.
Scardina then filed a civil suit on her own behalf in a state court, the current case being litigated.
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As members of Christ’s body, we should connect ourselves as members of a local expression of that body. Digital space disconnects us from our bodies, communities, and physical locations, and swirls us about in cyberspace, but the church roots us in reality, grounds us in love, and is ground zero for our life with Christ. 

It’s no secret that the church is experiencing an institutional crisis. Forty million people have left over the last 20 years. Not everyone is leaving for the same reasons, and just because they’re leaving the church behind doesn’t mean they’re leaving God. About 50 percent of people who have “hardly any” trust in organized religion still believe in God “without a doubt.” And while the reasons for leaving the church are wide-ranging, it’d be naive not to look at our digital practices as the church to see in what ways we are contributing to it.
In their book, The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?, Jim Davis and Michael Graham write,
“Most dechurched evangelicals still worship online (which is more common among evangelicals anyway), but they do so at their convenience. Many evangelical churches now call their online worship services ‘on demand,’ and that is exactly what people are choosing to do. What is intended as a new front door is often having the opposite effect by helping the dechurched leave through the back door. Our research showed that physically going to a church in our consumerist digital age has become inconvenient, and many people concluded that they had other priorities for their time and money.”
This doesn’t mean that you should shut down your live stream. That would need to be determined on a church-by-church basis, and there are good reasons to have a live stream. What this does mean is that we need to take a closer examination of our ecclesiology in a digital age. What are we communicating about the church in an age of institutional distrust and digital convenience? Can church really be “on demand”? Or have we lowered our ecclesiology to the lowest possible rung, happy to have views when Jesus called us to make disciples?
The proliferation not just of live streams but of Christian influencers and podcasts makes it easy to consume religious content and get the weekly dose of spirituality one feels one needs without the messy realities of dealing with a community of fellow sinners.
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