New Covenant
“The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant...”
I believe that this is one of the most untaught and maybe the most misunderstood lessons or doctrines in Christendom today. And yet, in my opinion, it is the most dynamic and most important doctrine for us, on this side of the cross, to get hold of.
When we don’t understand that we have been freed from one Covenant - the covenant of the law - and are now the beneficiaries of a New Covenant - The Covenant of Grace. When we don’t understand that there are two ways we can live - the old way or the brand new way, we become double-minded, unstable and are easily tossed around.
Some or most Christians try to live in both Covenants. Not only is this an impossibility, but it is dangerous. This practice of mixing the old and the new, not only waters down the stringency of the law and its consequences but it also makes light of the power of the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
Many Christians are confused because they lack a proper understanding of the New Covenant. Many have studied and know different aspects of the gospel such as sanctification, justification, forgiveness, reconciliation, righteousness, identity in Christ, etc. But for most, these are just separate and independent doctrines with nothing connecting them. The New Covenant brings all these doctrines together. The New Covenant is the glue that holds all these doctrines together in Christ.
Hebrews 8:8-13
“But God found fault with the people and said: The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt. They did not remain faithful to my covenant, so I turned my back on them, says the Lord. But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day, says the Lord: I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already. And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
“By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear.”
We learn about the New Covenant from the book of Hebrews. The book of Hebrews I hear is one of the least read epistles, not sure why.
Lets start from Hebrews 8:9, it will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors, speaking of the New Covenant. So whatever the old covenant was, God says here that this new covenant is not going to be like that one. Be ready, then, for something brand new, something very very different.
The Old was a conditional covenant but because our ancestors could not keep their end of the bargain, they could not remain faithful, God turned His back on them.
If we are not careful, we call ourselves new covenant believers, we call Jesus our High Priest but we reach back and grab hold of old.
"I said my prayers today...God's face is on me" " I used His name in vain.. He turned His back on me."
"I served at the homeless shelter...His face is upon me." "but coming home I cursed at the driver who cut me off... His back on me again".....
The conditional presence of God.... because they were unfaithful God turned His back on them.
That is the Old Covenant and God says that this New Covenant is going to be unlike the Old. The New Covenant is unconditional, as we will see. God made an oath with Himself and we are the beneficiaries of that.
So why did God institute a New Covenant? After all, there was an existing Covenant that had its basis on the Ten Commandments and the laws of Moses. Here is the reason;
Hebrews 8:7-8“For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.”
God found fault with the people not with His law or commandments. The people could not keep the laws or the commandments. The Old Testament is in effect a summary of man's unfaithfulness and God's faithfulness. The Israelites could not keep their end of the bargain with God. Take for example the commandment that Moses brought down from the mountain for them the first time, the first of the commandment was, thou shalt not worship any other God but me. Moses went back up the mountain to receive the tablets and by the time he came down the people were worshiping an idol....God found fault with the people so He set aside the Old Covenant;
Hebrews 7:18-19
“The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.”
The former regulations, meaning the Law and the Old Covenant, were set aside because they were weak and could not make man perfect. Actually, according to the writer of Hebrews, the Old Covenant was useless. Don’t just skip over this passage to something else. God’s requirement for mankind is 100% perfection (be perfect, just as the Father in heaven is perfect) but here this writer is telling us that the Old Covenant made nothing perfect because it was weak and useless. In the New Covenant, though, we have been made perfect in Christ. (Hebrews 10:14)
Are you still trying to get close to God through the law? Are you still trying to perfect your flesh through obedience to the law? Actually the law was never put in place to make you right with God (Galatians 5:4).
God in His love and mercy introduced a better way for us to draw close to Him... The New Covenant in Christ. In this New Covenant we can boldly enter His throne calling Him Abba Father. In the Old Covenant, the people could not get close to God. In fact, they would be killed on the spot if they tried. So if we understand that God has set aside the Old which was weak and useless and has instituted a New which is better and by which we can bold draw near to Him, why are we still dabbling with the Old?
The New Covenant contains better promises than those of the Old. These promises are unconditional in nature and rest solely on the faithfulness of God for their fulfillment.
Hebrews 8:6
“But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which He is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.”
Hebrews 9:15
“For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance - now that He has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.”
So let us look at what God prophesied through the Prophet Jeremiah and fulfilled in Christ. Let us look at the eternal promises of the New that are ours. Let us look at the better promises that we now inherit in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hebrews 8:10-12
“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘ know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
In this new, unconditional covenant, we have a new heart, God's laws of love are written on our heart and not on tablets of stone as they were in the old covenant.
We can now call God, Abba, Father, and not just the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The curtain that separated God from the people has now been torn down.
In the New Covenant we have a personal relationship with God, everyone of us who is born again has God living in our hearts.
And God crowns these promises with the best of them all; "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." Because of the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the Perfect, unblemished lamb, God's wrath was satisfied to the extend that He says He remembers our sins no more. The next time you knell down to ask God for forgiveness of some sin that you just committed, I pray this verse comes to your memory. God says that He does not remember that sin, so get off your self righteous knees and start thanking Him and rejoicing in the fact that Jesus Christ took care of that sin 2000 years ago.
Jesus Christ through an oath is The High Priest of The New Covenant, by His blood we have a better Covenant.
Hebrews 7:20-22
“And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without any oath, but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him: ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: “You are a priest forever.”’ Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.”
As I said earlier, if we are not careful, we call ourselves New Covenant believers, we call ourselves ministers of the new covenant, we call Jesus Christ our High Priest then we reach back and grab hold of the law of Moses. The same law that disqualifies Jesus Christ as a priest. Hebrews 7:14 "For it is clear that our Lord descended from Judah, and in regard to that tribe Moses said nothing about priests." Jesus Christ could not be a priest because He was of the tribe of Levi....this covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors....The New Covenant is different and better. We have a better High Priest.
We are under a better covenant, ushered in with precious blood and mediated by a New High Priest, one who meets our needs...
Hebrews 7:26-28
“Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.”
For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law. (Hebrews 7:12)
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. (Galatians 5:18)
In Christ we have a New High Priest and a New Covenant and a New Law. Law written on our hearts and not on tablets of stone. Jesus Christ is our High Priest and the scripture above says that when there is a change in the priesthood there must also be a change in the law. Are you still hanging on to the old? Who is your High Priest, Aaron or Jesus Christ? If Christ, then we have to understand that we are under a different law and not the law of Moses.
In Christ we have a High Priest who meets our needs. Let us look at some of the ways He meets our needs;
1. We have a High Priest, Jesus Christ, one who is holy, Hebrews 7:26-28 says, what did He do for us; Hebrews 10:10 'And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.'
Did you catch the tense in that verse? Past tense, “have been” made holy. In Christ, in the New Covenant, you have been made holy. That means God has set you apart for His work.
2. We have a high priest, one who is blameless. What did he do for us? Ephesians 1:4
'For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.'
Therefore
Romans 8:1
“there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”
Do you know what condemned us? The Law of the Old Covenant. But when God says that He sees us as blameless, it is because Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the Old Covenant. He then, with His death, ushered us into a New Covenant, in which there is no law to condemn us. We are blameless in the sight of God because we are in Christ.
3. We have a high priest, one who is set apart from sinners. What did He do for us? 1 Corinthians 6:11 “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
We were sanctified, that means set apart, made holy. Anything else that we try to do to make ourselves 'progressively' sanctified is outside of what Jesus Christ did. Faith in Christ is accepting what He has done for you and resting on it, instead of trying to add to what God said is finished.
Are you trying to improve on a master piece?
4. We have a high priest, one who is exalted above the heavens. What did He do for us? Ephesians 2:6 “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.”
If you are in Christ, were is Christ? Seated at the right hand of God the Father. So are you in Him this very moment not when you die but right this moment. 1 John 4:17 "Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world."
5. Jesus Christ, such a high priest meets our needs one who is perfect forever. Hebrews 10:14-11
“Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Hebrews 10:11-14
Looking through all these promises and what Jesus Christ did for us, one thing is glaring true, they are all unconditional. God did not say that He will not remember our sins when we apologize or when we tell Him how sorry we are for breaking one of His laws. God did not say He will give us a new heart because we behaved righteous. God did not say He will make us holy because we prayed without ceasing. God did not say that He will make us perfect in His sight when we read our bibles daily. God did all these because of our High Priest who offered for all time one sacrifice. God looked at that sacrifice and was satisfied. That sacrifice covered all sins, from the Cross back to Adam and forward to eternity.
With all these promises and guarantees from our Lord, it is interesting how ‘God fearing Christians’ will read some of these and then go out and try to improve on them.
If God says that you have been made holy, how much holier are you trying to get? If God says that He will not remember our sins any more, what exactly are we trying to get Him to do every time we ask for forgiveness?
Hebrews 10:17-18
Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more. And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.”
Ephesians 1:7-8
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.”
There is nothing more important than understanding the New Covenant. There are two parts to that understanding. The first part has to do with what Jesus accomplished on our behalf. The second part is all about His purpose in the New Covenant. Jesus fulfilled the Old and instituted the New in order to make us ministers of the New. As His body on earth, we have the incredible privilege of sharing the truths contained in the New Covenant with our families and friends.
There is nothing special or unique about being a minister. It is simply allowing Him to work through us by the Holy Spirit, making ourselves available to Him. We are, by definition, ministers of this New Covenant, new creations in Christ, and ministry is no more difficult than letting His love overflow into the lives of those around us.
2 Corinthians. 5:19
“that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not counting men’s sins against them.”
This is the most comforting and liberating news known to man.....
God did count men’s sins against them, the verdict was guilty the penalty was death. Christ took it for us and died in our place. And now has ushered us into this new relationship with God in which we are loved unconditionally and accepted totally. We are loved and accepted not because of what we do but because of what Jesus Christ did on our behalf. The Christian’s faith is in Christ and what He did not in us and what we can do for God.
