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‘I Will Complete a New Covenant’ (Heb 8.8): Christology and New Creation in Hebrews
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 March 2023
Abstract
The use of συντɛλέω to speak of God's ‘completion’ of the new covenant (Heb 8.8) has generated various explanations. Yet none of them factor in an important clue in Hebrews, namely, the rest discourse. By establishing literary and theological connections between Heb 3.7–4.13 and 8.8–12, this study argues that the promise of the completion of the new covenant evokes the completion of creation and its ensuing sabbath rest. Such an evocation brings to surface a logic of Christology and new creation embedded in Hebrews.
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References
1 Most LXX manuscripts attest διαθήσομαι except for Aquila (κοψω) and Symmachus (συντɛλɛσω), which is also possibly reflected in the Syro-hexaplaric translation.
2 E.g. Bruce, F. F., The Epistle to the Hebrews (NICNT; rev. edn, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990)Google Scholar 186 n. 40; Ellingworth, Paul, The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993) 416Google Scholar; Lane, William L., Hebrews 1–8 (WBC 47A; Dallas: Word, 1991) 209Google Scholar; Moffatt, James, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1952) 110Google Scholar; Weiß, Hans-Friedrich, Der Brief an die Hebräer (KEK; 15th edn; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991) 445CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 E.g. Gräßer, Erich, An die Hebräer (Hebr 7.1–10.18) (EKKNT 17/2; Zürich: Benziger/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1993) 98Google Scholar; and 98 n. 28; Peterson, David, Hebrews and Perfection: An Examination of the Concept of Perfection in the ‘Epistle to the Hebrews’ (SNTSMS 47; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 40–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar and 206 n. 86; Spicq, Ceslas, L’épitre aux Hébreux II. – Commentaire (Ebib; 3rd edn.; Paris: Gabalda, 1953) 241Google Scholar; Thomas, Kenneth J., ‘The Old Testament Citations in Hebrews’, NTS 11 (1965) 310CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Westcott, Brooke Foss, The Epistle to the Hebrews: The Greek Text with Notes and Essays (2nd edn.; reprinted, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984) 221Google Scholar.
4 E.g. Attridge, Harold, Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989) 227Google Scholar; Koester, Craig R., Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 36; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) 385–6Google Scholar; Mitchell, Alan C., Hebrews (SP 13; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2007) 168Google Scholar.
5 Some do not comment on this verb, e.g. Cockerill, Gareth Lee, The Epistle to the Hebrews (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012)Google Scholar; Docherty, Susan E., The Use of the Old Testament in Hebrews: A Case Study in Early Jewish Bible Interpretation (WUNT ii/260; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Héring, Jean, L’Épitre aux Hébreux (CNT 12; Paris: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1954)Google Scholar; Johnson, Luke Timothy, Hebrews: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006)Google Scholar; Lehne, Susanne, The New Covenant in Hebrews (JSNTSup 44; Sheffield: JSOT, 1990)Google Scholar; Montefiore, Hugh, A Commentary on the Epistles to the Hebrews (HNTC; New York: Harper & Row, 1964)Google Scholar; Steyn, Gert J., A Quest for the Assumed LXX Vorlage of the Explicit Quotations in Hebrews (FRLANT 235; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011) 248–71Google Scholar; Walser, Georg A., Old Testament Quotations in Hebrews: Studies in their Textual and Contextual Background (WUNT ii/356; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 In Hebrews, τɛλɛιόω is used to refer to the perfection of believers (7.19; 9.9; 10.1.14; 11.40; 12.23) and the perfection of Christ (2.10; 5.9; 7.28); ἐπιτɛλέω is used to refer to the completion of the tabernacle (8.5) and the performance of worship (9.6).
7 Παντɛλής is used to describe Jesus's salvific character (7.25); τέλɛιος is used to refer to mature/perfect believers (5.14) and the (more) perfect tabernacle (9.11); τɛλɛιότης is used to depict the goal of perfection that believers should strive for (6.1); τɛλɛίωσις refers to the perfection that the Levitical priesthood failed to bring (7.11); τɛλɛιωτής is used to designate Christ the perfecter of faith (12.2); τέλος is used to speak of an end in temporal terms (3.14; 6.811; 7.3).
8 This has been well-observed by others, e.g. Steyn, Quest for the Assumed LXX, 269.
9 Though lacking lexical overlap, the new covenant critiques the exodus generation who failed to remain in God's covenant (8.9). So Attridge, Hebrews, 227; Koester, Hebrews, 386.
10 So observed by Koester, Hebrews, 392.
11 The framing of the rest discourse with Christological motifs has been recognised by others, e.g. Koester, Hebrews, 276 n. 131; Laansma, Jon, ‘I Will Give You Rest’: The Rest Motif in the New Testament with Special Reference to Mt 11 and Heb 3-4 (WUNT ii/98; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997) 268–72Google Scholar; Moore, Nicholas J., ‘Jesus as ‘The One who Entered His Rest’: The Christological Reading of Hebrews 4.10’, JSNT 36 (2014) 383–400Google Scholar.
12 Attridge, Hebrews, 227.
13 Outside the Jeremiah quotations, οἶκος also occurs in Heb 10.21 (καὶ ἱɛρέα μέγαν ἐπὶ τὸν οἶον τοῦ θɛοῦ), which probably refers back to Heb 3.1–6. Another instance is found in Heb 11.7, where Hebrews writes of Noah's preparation (κατασκɛυάζω) of an ark for the salvation of his household, which might refer to the motif of God as the builder (κατασκɛυάζω) of all things (3.3–4).
14 Following Richard Hays, I am using the term ‘echo’ as ‘metalepsis’, which ‘places the reader within a field of whispered or unstated correspondences’ (Hays, Richard B., Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 20Google Scholar; see also 14–21). Elsewhere he writes, ‘Metalepsis is a rhetorical and poetic device in which one text alludes to an earlier text in a way that evokes resonances of the earlier text beyond those explicitly cited. The result is that the interpretation of a metalepsis requires the reader to recover unstated or suppressed correspondences between the two texts’ (Hays, Richard B., The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel's Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 2Google Scholar (emphasis original)).
15 Hebrews’ divergences from Genesis (i.e. the addition of the subject ὁ θɛὸς and the rendering of the dative τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ ἑβδόμῃ into a prepositional phrase) is minor.
16 So Gelardini, Gabriella, ‘Hebrews, an Ancient Synagogue Homily for Tisha be-Av: Its Function, its Basis, its Theological Interpretation’, Hebrews: Contemporary Methods – New Insights (ed. Gabriella Gelardini; BIS 75; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 120CrossRefGoogle Scholar, though exclusively opting for the allusion to Exod 31.17b instead of Gen 2.2; see also idem, „Verhärtet eure Herzen nicht“: Der Hebräer, eine Synagogenhomilie zu Tischa be-Aw (BIS 83; Leiden: Brill, 2007).
17 Hebrews uses αἰώνιος to depict Christ's salvation (5.9; 9.12, 15), eternal judgment (6.2), and the eternal Spirit (9.14).
18 See McDonough, Sean M., Christ as Creator: Origins of a New Testament Doctrine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
19 Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.20.1; 5.6.1.