The New Covenant

 

The God of the Bible is a covenant God and has established multiple covenants (legal agreements) with various men on behalf of God’s people, including Noah, Abraham, Israel (through Moses), and David. These covenants with Noah, Abraham and David were unconditional, meaning that God promised to do something without man meeting conditions. The Old Covenant, God’s covenant with Moses at Mount Sinai, was different since it required man to fulfill his part in order for God to complete His. Then in Jeremiah 31, God revealed the New Covenant, another unconditional covenant with Israel and this covenant was extended to the church in Hebrews 8:10-12. 

“But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.  Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have sent you all My servants the prophets, daily rising early and sending them. Yet they did not listen to Me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck; they did more evil than their fathers.”         Jeremiah 7:23-26

Throughout Old Testament times, it became clear that the covenant God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai was not producing a faithful people, even leading to the Northern and Southern Kingdoms being taken captive by heathen enemies. According to Jeremiah 7:23-26, the Jews were asked to obey and He would be their God, but they became stubborn in their hearts and refused to listen to God. Because it was a conditional covenant and therefore relied on man to fulfill his end of the agreement, it was doomed to fail. Can man be relied upon to be consistent in any human endeavor? According to the Apostle Paul in Romans 7, that answer is no. The things that Paul did not wish to do, he did and the things he wished to do he did not. “Oh wretched man that I am” (Romans 7:24). Whenever man is given a choice, there must be a provision for his failure. Though the Hebrews saw the miracles of God on their behalf throughout Old Testament history, it was their evil hearts (Jeremiah 17:9) that caused them to rely on the counsel of man rather than their God. In this way, man proved his own unfaithfulness and failure and this was God’s intention all along (Galatians 3:23-24). Man’s failure to keep his side of the bargain has become the necessary experience that leads him to Christ.

Man’s heart is the real problem 

"Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or else My wrath will go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds."         Jeremiah 4:4

The real difficulty with the old covenant had to do with man’s heart. It was always intended that man would engage God through the heart (a circumcision of the heart, if you will), but man could avoid it since the covenant was administered externally by Jewish leaders. When the law is administered from without, man’s nature is to look for the minimum requirements and shortcuts so he can get by without the heart getting involved, thus preserving his own life. He can get by on natural ability, concealing the failures, and just going through the motions.

The only way this covenant works is if man chooses to surrender to its authority and be subject to its consequences. Yet we see only a small number, the remnant referred to in Romans 11:4 (quoting from 1Kings 19:18) as, “I have kept for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal”. It is said of these ones in Zephaniah 3:12-13, “…a humble and lowly people,” who “… will take refuge in the name of the Lord”, and “… will do no wrong and tell no lies, nor will a deceitful tongue be found in their mouths.” This covenant requires going beyond natural ability and goodness; it requires the power of God to fulfill. And that was possible only with one who would be humble and lowly and “take refuge in the name of the Lord”. And that willingness to approach God could only happen when one is willing to surrender self!

I will remember their sins no more 

In Jeremiah 31:31-34, God reveals the new covenant through the prophet Jeremiah at a time when the nation of Israel was to be punished for its failures to keep the old covenant. This new covenant is based on what God would do for man and not conditioned on what people would or could do. The basis of this covenant is found in Hebrews 8:12: “For I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more”. God was going to provide a way for their sins to be forgiven without the old covenant system of sacrifices.

The writer of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34 in two different places (Hebrews 8:10-12 and Hebrews 10:16-17) as a means of introducing this covenant, originally intended for the House of Israel (to be fulfilled in the Milleniel Kingdom), now as a new covenant with the church, Jesus being the mediator of this covenant (Hebrews 9:15). Although Jesus only mentioned the new covenant directly on one occasion, at the last supper, His entire public ministry was a demonstration of what the dynamics of the covenant would look like. 

A new administration 

Comparing the new covenant to the old, there is a complete change in the administration of this covenant. In the Mosaic Law, God’s laws were administered and enforced externally, by Jewish leaders, while this new covenant is the responsibility of the Holy Spirit from within the believer. In John 8, the Pharisees brought a charge against the woman caught in the act of adultery and asked Jesus if the law of Moses should be applied to her. This is a picture of how the law was enforced by the leadership. The new covenant picture is found later in the account, when Jesus says to the woman, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more” (John 8:11). If our sins are forgiven (Hebrews 8:12) and they are in this new covenant, then the emphasis is that we do not do it again! 

In Exodus 31:18, the Scripture tells us that tablets of stone were written with the finger of God. The new covenant laws are written deep within each believer, in their hearts and minds and not on stone. God wishes to change our hearts from stone (self-centered) to flesh so that we can experience the presence and power of God (Ezekiel 36:26). If we are to have this dynamic relationship with the living God, it can only happen as a result of God’s work in changing our hearts. The old covenant demands change from the outside; the new covenant works its changes from the inside! 

Facing God with weaknesses and failures

If I am to become God’s people, it will require learning how to love God’s laws so that I will desire to obey them on the basis of honor for the relationship instead of duty or fear of retribution. It is like a child who desires to honor his parents’ wishes on the basis of love. The one who loves the laws of God is the one who has adopted the standards of God, His righteousness, as the standards which will lead to the highest quality of life. This one is willing to face God with his weaknesses and failures, recognizing that God is a God of mercy, but at the same time willing to face the consequences. Proverbs 24:16 teaches us that the righteous man does fall, even seven times, and rises again. The new covenant relationship with God provides a perfect environment to fall since there is a provision to get back up. And if I need to be disciplined, it is meant to be training and not punishment.

The heart is the place where man decides what things he is to value or treasure. Growing up in this world causes most of us to embrace the material over the eternal.  And the devil is constantly enticing our senses, our lusts and weaknesses, to get us to make wrong choices. To overcome this condition, God has ordained that He must work these value changes within the heart, typically through trials and other challenges. He is always trying to reveal His eternal value system and wants us to choose that system over the temporal. This is a process of us allowing God to do the things internally that we would not choose for ourselves. I experience the faithfulness of God as He gently coaxes me (and sometimes not so gently) to make the right decisions. It is this process that teaches me to trust, which is the essence of faith.

Taught by the grace of God

In this new covenant, the real teaching is accomplished by the Holy Spirit, Who combines “spiritual thoughts with spiritual words” (1Corinthians 2:13) to illuminate the mind to the things of God. Although one may be listening to a pastor or other teacher of the Scriptures, the real work of teaching is accomplished from within and this gives us a deeper understanding of God’s heart and mind. Even in the old covenant, God is the ultimate teacher as Isaiah 54:13 says, “All your sons will be taught of the Lord”. In this way, the believer is getting to know the Person of God, not just things about Him. And anyone who has the Spirit of God within (ie. born again) is capable of understanding the deepest things of God while the unbeliever (natural man) is never able to comprehend, since the Spirit is the one who illuminates the mind and heart to these truths. To know God in a personal way is to agree with what He stands for. 

In the new covenant relationship with God, Jesus brings salvation to all men by His grace (unearned) and it is this grace that teaches us how “to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11-12). Our greatest enemies against this quality of life are the flesh, the world, and the devil. The devil, who knows our weaknesses by observation, energizes the lusts of our flesh through outside stimulus from the world and inside through human weaknesses. But the divine solution is our consistent gaze at the coming glory of the risen Lord in His second coming that purifies the believer to do “good deeds”. 

Once for all

Hebrews 10 declares the shortcomings of the old covenant exposed as it emphasizes the need for a perfect sacrifice, one that will be “once for all” (verse 10). In verse 3, the daily sacrifices serve as a “reminder of sins year by year”. Instead of these constant reminders, the new covenant, through the blood of Christ, will “cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14). Since the new covenant is also called an everlasting (eternal) covenant (Isaiah 55:3, Hebrews 13:20), it remains forever and does not need any improvements. This is why He is making the old covenant obsolete (Hebrews 8:13).

It is clear from the Scriptures that the new covenant provides the environment necessary for the believer in Jesus as Messiah to experience the deepest relationship with God through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Man can never attain to this highest quality of life apart from God’s work on his behalf and his willingness to receive and accept the free gift of salvation.