A Better Covenant?

Hebrews 8:6-13 (King James Version)
6But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
7For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
8For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
9Not 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 continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
13In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

Hebrews 10:15-17 (King James Version)
15Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,
16This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;
17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
Hebrews 10:15-17 (King James Version)

A better covenant which was established on better promisses?

Some suggest that a Christian can fail and lapse into a state of unbelief, and suffer for that at the Judgement Seat of Christ. If that is so then how is the New Covenant a better covenant? After all, according to them, the results are all the same - that is that those within the covenant can fall into unbelief just as the larger part of OT Israel had. These people then are teaching that the New Covenant is not a better covenant after all.

Terry Rayburn Nails It

you can find him in the discussion here...http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2008/12/soporific-scourge-of-nomicophobia.html#links

...I agree there should be awareness and repentance upon hearing commands that one is not following. But I speak of that "feeling" which comes over Christians when they hear "convicting" preaching -- a feeling expressed within as, "Oh, yes, what a low-down scummy worm I am! Every command Pastor preaches just proves it. I GOTTA pull up my bootstraps and perform better! Surely God must be angry at me. I've confessed that sin a thousand times! I know...I'll try HARDER! Go ahead, Pastor, whip me, beat me. Oh how I deserve it. But I'll do better...['No you won't', the enemy interjects, 'you know better than that']...yes I WILL! Blah, blah, blah."

And so the "convicted" one puts himself on the ground of Law, instead of grace, which Law is the very *strength* of sin (1 Cor. 15:56). He thereby quenches the Holy Spirit and compounds his problem.

The preacher of grace should constantly short-circuit that destructive thinking with the twin pillars of the Radical Grace and the New Creation Identity of the New Covenant.

So that the sheep realize that although they once were "Sinners in the hands of an angry God", they are no longer. Now they are Saints in the hands of a loving Friend. A Friend Who is transcendent, yet indwelling us; awesomely holy, yet satisfied through Christ; having a zeal for His Law, yet seeing it fulfilled in the Son;angry with the wicked, yet fully accepting His children in the Beloved;expressing His righteous heart in commandments, yet having unilaterally forgiven the breaking of them through the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, so that there is NO condemnation to him who is in Christ Jesus.

They will follow a Friend like that.