The very first revelation of who God is involves something that God made. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” And then God said “let us make man in our image.” But why did God make all these things? Why did He make us? We know God was not lonely because the Godhead had always been in loving fellowship. God wanted to create because He wanted to share Himself and reveal Himself to another personality who could appreciate this same loving fellowship.
The first man and woman that God made chose to reject this Divine fellowship and go their own way. And humanity has been following in the footsteps of Adam ever since. But God did not reject humanity entirely and He did not forsake His original desire to create a People for Himself. So God began a new work, a new creation, in which even more of His Divine attributes would be displayed.
The new work began when God called Abraham and from him created a nation that was set apart from other nations. He gave them His Law and made a covenant with them. But throughout their history Israel failed to keep that covenant.
Through the prophet Jeremiah, when the clouds of judgment were gathering over Jerusalem, God promises that He would make a new covenant. This covenant would be very different from the covenant God made with Israel through Moses. The writer of Hebrews quotes the prophecy of Jeremiah and argues that through Jesus Christ this has been fulfilled and a new covenant has been made. That old covenant has become obsolete.
The Jeremiah quote comes in the middle of a brilliant argument that this New Covenant is better than the Old. Jesus is Himself the basis of a new and better covenant. “This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant” (Hebrews 7:22). The English word “guarantor” is a financial term. It is a surety, bond, or promise by one party to assume responsibility for the obligations of another party. It is a better covenant because Jesus is a better priest, it is founded on better promises, and Jesus has offered a better sacrifice.
• The obligations of the New Covenant are undertaken by a better priest (Heb. 7.1-28). Jesus has entered into the true Sanctuary, Heaven itself, to intercede for His people. Jesus is a permanent priest, with the power of an indestructible life. This means that Jesus can take us farther than the priests under the Old Covenant.
• The covenant Jesus now mediates is also based on better promises. “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises” (Hebrews 8:6). This is a reference to the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The New Covenant is actually the original covenant (Genesis 12:1-3). The Covenant of Law was added to the original promise made to Abraham (Gal. 3.19).
• But it was the death of Christ that finally made it possible for the promises that God made to be fully realized. “Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant” (Hebrews 9:15). Sin had to be taken away so that the Promise could be fulfilled. The Old Covenant never took away sin. But since He died to take away sin, Jesus can now mediate all the blessings of the New Covenant that were originally promised to Abraham.
The writer has to make these arguments because these people, who were Jewish Christians, were being tempted to leave Christ and go back to observing the Law. But this would be a huge mistake because God has made a New Covenant. You can’t go back to the Old and those who do so cannot be retrieved again (Heb. 6.4-6). If those who disobeyed the Law were severely punished, what do you think God will do with those who refuse to hear Jesus and obey Him (Heb. 2.1-3; 4.1-2; 12.25)?
Why make a New Covenant?
So why did God have to make a New Covenant? Was there something wrong with the Law? Was God surprised by the people’s failure? We know that God is never surprised. In this case, man’s failure was part of the Divine Plan. God did not cause Israel to fail and break the Covenant, but He knew that they would. God made a covenant that He knew would be broken. The Covenant God made with Israel was like a controlled experiment to prove human frailty and failure.
But human failure does not negate the Divine Purpose. Though Israel broke the Covenant, that did not annul the promise God had previously made to Abraham. This means that God never changed His plan at all but has been perfectly consistent. The New Covenant is not “Plan B”! The failure of man does not derail the purpose of God.
God’s doesn’t make mistakes and His Word is without flaw. The Covenant did not fail because there was something wrong with the Law. The Law is holy, righteous, and good. It is an expression of God’s nature. And our response to God’s Law is an expression of what is in human nature.
God found fault with the people.
The problem with the Covenant was not the Law, it was the hearts of the people. The people did not keep the Law and therefore they did not keep the obligations of the Covenant. A covenant is between two parties that each agree to do certain things. As long as both parties hold up their end of the deal then the covenant is good. But if one or both parties fail to keep their agreement the covenant is broken, and there are usually penalties. A curse was pronounced on anyone who failed to keep the Covenant (Deuteronomy 11:26-29).
Were the commandments too hard? Perhaps God was just being unreasonable with the people. There are many people who think that God is some kind of ruthless tyrant who enjoys making our lives miserable.
The trouble was not that they could not obey it. The trouble was that they would not obey it. They had two paths set before them – life and death, blessing and cursing – and they chose to break God’s Law. This shows us what happens when human beings are given a choice. They inevitably make the wrong choice, just as Adam and Eve did. Free-will only results in death.
The people broke the Covenant.
Even though the people of Israel had good intentions to obey the Law of God, they did not do it. The people had said to Moses at Sinai to
“Go near and hear all that the LORD our God will say, and speak to us all that the LORD our God will speak to you, and we will hear and do it.’
And the LORD said to me, ‘I have heard the words of this people, which they have spoken to you. They are right in all that they have spoken. Oh that they had such a heart as this always, to fear me and to keep all my commandments, that it might go well with them and with their descendants forever (Deuteronomy 5:27-29)!
So much for all good intentions! We say we are going to do our best, but we don’t. Neither did Israel. And it did not go well with them and their descendants. Many generations later Jeremiah charged Israel with breaking the Covenant:
“Hear the words of this covenant and do them. For I solemnly warned your fathers when I brought them up out of the land of Egypt, warning them persistently, even to this day, saying, Obey my voice. Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but everyone walked in the stubbornness of his evil heart. Therefore I brought upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do, but they did not” (Jeremiah 11:6-8).
Why didn’t Israel keep the words of the Covenant, which was the Law? Moses knew why the people would not remain faithful. “But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear (Deuteronomy 29:4). Even after receiving all of the blessings of God they people still turned away in their hearts. They did not love God, which was the first and most important commandment of the Law (Deut. 6.5).
Why didn’t God give them a heart to love Him? Because He was demonstrating through them the truth about human nature. There is something wrong with the heart or nature of man that Law cannot change. All of us have broken God’s Law like Israel. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The Law was given to teach us about sin. The Law stirs up sin in our hearts, making it come out of its dark hiding places. In Pilgrim’s Progress Bunyan compares the Law to someone with a broom sweeping a dusty room – the Law does not clean our dirty hearts but only stirs up the mess.
The Law was external. God knew that He would have to make another covenant, one that would address the internal condition of the heart, which is deceitfully wicked (Jeremiah 17.9).
God will make the Covenant.
The Covenant is not something that is discussed between God and man. There is no negotiation. No one can make a deal with God, though many people try. It is important to notice that Abraham did not go to God and ask for a covenant. Abraham was called by God. And the people of Israel did not ask for a covenant, but God brought them to Mt. Sinai.
The initiative to make a covenant was always with God, not man. The fact that God would make a covenant at all is a demonstration of His grace. He owes us nothing. We owe Him everything.
The New Covenant that God makes will not be the same kind of covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai. There is a significant different between the Old Covenant of Law and this New Covenant.
The Covenants are not the same.
Now remember that this New Covenant is actually a fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham, and then to Isaac and Jacob. The Covenant at Mt Sinai was a separate covenant and was a different kind of arrangement. The Abrahamic Covenant remained in force even after God gave the Law at Sinai.
But the promise that God made to Abraham was unilateral. That is, God simply made a promise to Abraham. There was nothing for Abraham to do except believe the promise. And Abraham did believe God, and his faith was credited to him as righteousness (Gen. 15.6). Later God gave Abraham the sign of the Covenant, which was circumcision. But Abraham already had the Covenant and had already been justified BEFORE he was circumcised.
Now this is an important point that Paul makes in his letter to the Galatians. The Galatians did not understand these things and they were trying to be justified by the Law and by being circumcised. So Paul made this distinction between the Promise God gave to Abraham and the Law He gave to Israel through Moses:
“This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one” (Galatians 3:17-20).
“God is one.” The Law was not unilateral. Moses was a mediator because there were two parties involved in the Covenant – God and Israel. This is the traditional model for a covenant. Israel had to obey to keep their end of the covenant. The blessings were conditional.
But the covenant God made with Abraham was not a traditional covenant. It was simply a promise and that is why there was no mediator between God and Abraham. God spoke directly to Abraham about what God was going to do. The Abrahamic blessing was not conditional. God Himself would bring the blessing. Abraham had to simply agree with God, or believe the Promise, to seal the deal.
If I came to you and told you that next year I would transfer a large sum of money into your account, and all you had to do was receive the money, then that is like the promise to Abraham. But if I told you that you had to sign a contract and agree to do a certain kind of work for me in order to receive the money, then that is like the Covenant at Mt Sinai.
The New Covenant that God made through Christ is just like the covenant God made with Abraham. In fact, it is a fulfillment of that Promise and so really the Promise and the New Covenant are one and the same.
The Law was added to the Promise because of the radical problem of human sin. The ministry of the Law was to prepare the people for the coming of Christ. That is why there were so many types and shadows, so that the Redeemer would be recognized and His work understood.
The righteous requirements of the Law are not erased.
Was God suddenly repealing the Law? Are the Ten Commandments themselves now unnecessary? Are we to become antinomians who have no standards for righteous living? It seems that some have taken the position that righteous living does not matter under grace like it did under the Law. So let us just keep on sinning so that grace might increase (Rom. 6.1)!
We must make two distinctions. First, there is a distinction between the Law, or the commandments, and the Covenant. The people of Israel entered into the Covenant with God when they agreed to obey the commandments. Secondly, there is a difference between moral commandments and ceremonial commandments. The moral commandments are universal, absolute expressions of righteousness and will never pass away, according to Jesus Himself (Matthew 5:17-19). It was the ceremonial laws – priests, sacrifices, washings, food, and tabernacle – that have become obsolete because these were types and shadows.
So the moral requirements of the Law still stand. God did not change and He did not relax His righteous requirements. In fact, the New Covenant is actually more demanding than the old, because it takes into consideration even the thoughts and motives of the heart. This was the theme of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Our righteousness cannot just be external, like that of the Law. We have to actually BE righteous, even in our hearts.
The New Covenant is not an “easier” covenant. It is not that God decided that the Law was too hard for us, and so He came up with something that was more laid-back. And yet there are some who seem to compare the Old Covenant and the New Covenant in this way: “Law is really hard and we can’t do it. But grace is easy. We all sin, you know, but its ok now! God is gracious and just forgives us when we mess up.”
There are multiple problems with this way of thinking. First, it makes God soft on sin as if God’s righteousness is something bendable or negotiable. Secondly, it ignores what God promised to do in the New Covenant. God does not change. But God would work a change in the hearts of His people. This is the promise of the New Covenant.
The Promises of the New Covenant
You can think of the prophecy of Jeremiah as an exposition of the promise of blessing given to Abraham. God promises blessing through Abraham’s Seed, which is Christ. How, exactly, will God bless His people in the New Covenant that Jesus established? God made four promises about the New Covenant, all of which come directly from the prophecy of Jeremiah.
1. The New Covenant promised that God would work in the hearts of His people.
That is the difference between the covenants. In the old covenant there was no transformation of the Heart. There was forgiveness, but no gift of the Spirit. This New Covenant is something God does in us, it is not something that we do, which was the case under the Law – “this do and live.”
God is going to perform spiritual surgery and circumcise the hearts of His people. This is why Jesus told Nicodemus, an expert in the Law, that he needed to be born again. Having the Law of God written on the heart is the same as being born of the Spirit (John 3.3-5).
The New Covenant is internal, not external. It is spiritual, not ritual. We worship God in spirit, putting no confidence in the Flesh (John 4.23-24; Phil. 3.3). The Old Covenant was a carnal covenant with carnal blessings. We don’t baptize infants because we recognize the difference between the Old and the New Covenant. The Old Covenant was something you were born into because you were a Jew. The sign of the Old Covenant was circumcision, which was done in the flesh.
But to be part of the New Covenant you have to be born again. And circumcision is done in the heart, not by man, but by the Spirit (Rom. 2.28-29; Col. 2.11)). God is not impressed by carnal religion. He looks at the heart. The Old Covenant was written on stone, but the New Covenant is written on the heart (2 Cor. 3.3-6).
The primary blessing or mark of the New Covenant is that God turns His people from their wickedness (Acts 3.26). God did not relax His righteous requirements, instead, he made His people capable of actually being righteous (Rom. 8.4). We now have those portable GPS systems in our cars that can direct us to our destination. The believer has been given an internal, spiritual GPS that always points us in the way that we should go. So if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the lusts of the Flesh (Gal. 5.16).
The prophet Ezekiel also prophesied about this new work that God would do in the hearts of His people:
“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20).
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
Notice the emphasis is placed on the work of God: “I WILL.” Anything that we do is simply a response to what God has done in us.
The work of God in us is so radical that Paul compared it to being raised from the dead (Eph. 2.1-5). C.S. Lewis said that we were like statues made of cold, hard stone that God has brought to life. Now we can live unto God like real people who can think, serve, love, and be loved.
2. The New Covenant promises that the people will love God and be faithful to Him.
Remember that love is the fulfillment of the Law (Matt 22.37-38). Israel had always struggled with loving God first and being faithful (Ex. 32.9). New Covenant people are NOT wayward or inconsistent in their devotion to God and have thrown down all the idols of the heart. If this has not taken place, then there is no New Covenant. When you have a group of people who are basically wayward, yet insist on being religious, then that is Old Covenant religion, and it is obsolete. Perhaps you have even heard Church people say “we are just like those Israelites.” Well, that is an amazing confession! What they are really saying is that they are not members of the New Covenant.
When we were children we related to our parents mostly through law. There was a parent-child hierarchy. We had to obey or there were consequences. Children need parents to guide them because they are not grown up yet and they don’t understand. Those who are under Law are like little children under the authority of parents (Gal. 3.24-25). What parents really want is for their children to begin to INTERNALIZE certain things so that they mature and become responsible adults. What God wants is mature, adult children who have actually participated in His nature (2 Pet. 1.4), who understand His ways, and who love Him freely. Eventually you have to move beyond a law-keeping mentality in your relationship with God and grow up in Christ. That’s the kind of people God wants.
3. The New Covenant promises that the people will know God.
The people were not intimate with God under the Law. The whole system told the people to stay back, lest you be destroyed! The very existence of the Tabernacle, with that curtain in front of the Most Holy Place, declared that there was a separation between God and the people.
But in the New Covenant, God Himself will teach the people. There is no person in the New Covenant who is ignorant of God. This is an intimate knowledge that is fellowship, not just an academic or intellectual knowledge. This is very personal, even though it is not private.
This does not mean that we don’t have to learn about God from Scripture or that we don’t need teachers and pastors to help us. But no one in the New Covenant will be ignorant of who the true God is, nor will they be kept from having intimate, spiritual fellowship with the Father.
There is no special class of people in the New Covenant who know God while the others remain ignorant and alienated. All of God’s people are priests and have access to God.
4. The New Covenant promises that God will forgive the sins of His people.
This is a once-for-all-time remedy for sin, not the constant reminder of sins that accompanied the bringing of sacrifices to God. The sacrifices under the Law were actually a reminder of sin, not of forgiveness. But the blood of Christ cleanses the conscience of the worshiper (Heb. 9.14). The Law was only a shadow that provisionally forgave sin. The repetition of animal sacrifices meant these did not take away sin. But the blood of Christ gives us confidence to approach God (Heb. 10.19-22). When Jesus died the veil was torn apart and the way to God was opened!
The only way to come to God is through Christ, not through Law. The Law is no longer in force as a covenant, or as a way of coming to God. The destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D. – as prophesied by Christ (Matt. 24.1-2) - ended the sacrifices and the priesthood. The Jews have a future with God, but not through the Law.
If people do not give some kind of evidence that their hearts have been changed, that they love God, that they know God, and that they have confidence that their sins have been forgiven, then those people may be religious, but they are not members of the New Covenant.
The New Covenant is not found in the pages of Scripture, in a Creed, a denomination, an institution, a Church group, or in a theological position. You can have those things and not have the New Covenant. The people will just be religious and will be rejected by God.
But the same God who created the world and everything in it is in the process of creating a People, a Bride, who can share His life forever. Covenant is all about intimacy and the merging of two hearts into one. And so God’s greatest work, surpassing even the glory of the brightest stars in the universe, is His creation of a People to whom He could reveal His infinite love and who could freely choose to love Him in return forever and ever.
And that is the New Covenant.
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