Hebrews 8:13
Hebrews 8:1313By speaking of a new covenant, He has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.
"Now what is obsolete and growing old is near to vanishing away." The Watchtower reads as confirming that the Mosaic Law is finished — a point JWs accept and use to ground "we are not under the Law" arguments. The forward-looking quality of "near to vanishing" is read as pointing toward the temple's AD 70 destruction or, more loosely, toward the consummation of the Kingdom. The new-covenant-now-in-effect side of the verse is underplayed because of the Watchtower's restriction of new- covenant participation to the 144,000.
is the inaugurated-eschatology hinge. The new covenant has come (the verse uses present tense for the old becoming obsolete) and the old is passing. We live in the overlap — the new covenant is in effect, the old is fading, and the consummation is still ahead. Compare with , where Paul, writing under the new covenant, places his own knowledge in the "in part" stage that anticipates the face-to-face. The "already-but-not-yet" pattern shapes both individual sanctification and corporate Christian life. Pair with (the universal "from least to greatest" knowledge promise) and (the heavenly Jerusalem already approached now). The verse is incompatible with the Watchtower framework that treats the new covenant as future-only for the great crowd.