The New Covenant

The New Covenant is not a new plan replacing God's promises, it is the place where every earlier covenant was always heading. Follow the thread from Noah to Abraham to Sinai to Jeremiah, and it ends at a cross, a cup, and a changed heart. In the Hebrew thought, a covenant - berith (ברית), is a binding, blood-sealed relationship, far more than a contract. The Bible's own idiom is that, one "cuts" a covenant, (karat berit - כרת ברית), because covenants were sealed by cutting the animals in two.

The meaning of the cut is made plain in Jeremiah 34:18-19, where those who passed between the severed halves were saying, in effect: may it be done to me as it was done to these animals if I break this covenant. Keep that picture in mind. It is the key to every covenant that follows, and to the cross.

The word "covenant" first appears in Genesis 6:18, when God tells Noah, "with thee will I establish my covenant." The covenant itself is spelled out after the flood in Genesis 9:8-17, and it rests on God alone. The Lord said to Noah:

"Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth" - Genesis 9:11

God also pledged the stability of creation:

"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" - Genesis 8:22

The Lord put the rainbow in the sky as the sign of this covenant with Noah. Nothing is asked of Noah in return, as this was an unconditional covenant, and it sets the pattern: God moves first.

In the case of Abraham, God promised Abraham a son, and told him to count the stars and said, "So shall thy seed be." Then, comes the verse that anchors the whole Bible's teaching on salvation. The Bible says:

"And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness" - Genesis 15:5-6

Righteousness is credited before any ritual and before any work. God then "cut a covenant" with him (Genesis 15:9-21). Abraham brought a heifer, a goat, and a ram, cut each in half, and laid the pieces opposite one another. He also brought a turtledove and a young pigeon, which he did not divide. Abraham should have walked between the pieces, as the human party always did. Instead God put him into a deep sleep, and "a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp" passed between the halves alone (Genesis 15:12, 17). God bound Himself, and only Himself, to keep the promise. This is a one-sided, unconditional covenant. If it fails, the penalty falls on God. Apostle Paul later reasons that the promise to Abraham came 430 years before the Law, and the Law cannot cancel it:

"And what I am saying is this: the Law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to abolish the promise. For if the inheritance is by law, it is no longer by promise, but God has granted it to Abraham through promise." -Galatians 3:17-18

Remember this, it is where the cross is already foreshadowed. In Genesis 17:1, thirteen years after the promise of an heir and the detour of Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 16, God appears again saying: "Walk before me, and be thou perfect (תמים)." The Hebrew word used here for "perfect" is the word tamim (תמים), which means whole, undivided, and complete in devotion. It does not mean sinless. The call is not a contradiction of Genesis 15:6. It answers Abraham's lapse in chapter 16, when he tried to fulfil God's promise by human shortcut. God is saying, in effect: you belong to Me now, so walk with an undivided heart and stop helping Me keep My word.

Obedience here, is the fruit of acceptance, not its cause. Apostle James says of Abraham:

"His faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did" - James 2:22

God's Grace starts the covenant, and obedience shows loyalty to the King who called. In plain terms, God accepted Abraham first, and Abraham's obedience followed. Obedience is not the price Abraham paid to be accepted. It is the proof that his trust in God was real.

Think of an apple tree. A tree does not become an apple tree by producing apples. It produces apples because it is already alive and already an apple tree. In the same way, Abraham did not obey in order to become God's friend. He obeyed because he already was. Or think of a marriage. A person does not wash dishes and keep promises in order to become a spouse. They do those things because they are married and they love the one they married. Acts of loyalty do not create the relationship; they show it is real.

Some readers think that Apostle James contradicts Paul who says that we are made right with God by faith and not by works (Romans 3:28). They answer two different questions. Paul asks, how does a person get right with God? The answer is faith alone, as a gift. James asks, what does real faith look like? The answer is that it acts. "Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone" (James 2:17). Someone who says "I trust you" but never does anything you ask, has not shown much trust. When James says Abraham's faith "was made complete," he means it reached its goal, the way a seed is completed when it grows into a plant. The best example is Genesis 22, when Abraham was willing to offer his son Isaac because he trusted that God could be relied on (James 2:21; Hebrews 11:17-19). That act did not earn Abraham's place with God. He had been counted righteous decades earlier (Genesis 15:6). The act made visible what was already true.

In the ancient world a king might graciously make a covenant with a people who could never have earned it. The people did not pay for it. They showed loyalty by living as that king's people. Obedience to God works the same way. It says, "I trust You, and I belong to You." Jesus puts it simply:

"If ye love me, keep my commandments" - John 14:15)

Paul adds that we are saved by Grace, not by works, and then created "unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Ephesians 2:10). Good works are the result of salvation, not the way to earn it. In Genesis 17, God renames Abram and Sarai as Abraham and Sarah and gives circumcision as the covenant sign (Genesis 17:5, 10-14). Paul explains that circumcision was a seal of the righteousness Abraham already had by faith (Romans 4:9-11).

After the Exodus, God made a covenant with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai and gave the Torah (the Law / Law of Moses) (Exodus 19-24). The Law is more than the Ten Commandments. Jewish tradition counts 613 commandments in all, covering moral life, sacrifice, feasts, and the Sabbath. It matters that God gave the Law (Torah) after He rescued the people of Israel, not before. Redemption came first, and the Law taught the redeemed how to live as God's people. The Sabbath itself is one of the Ten (Exodus 20:8-11), which is why simple claims that the Law or Ceremonial Laws has been "done away with" deserve careful study rather than slogans. But, what the Law could never do is save. The Bible saya:

"By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin" - Romans 3:20

The Law is "holy, and just, and good" (Romans 7:12), but it exposes sin without removing it. Jesus did not abolish it, but fulfilled it. He said:

"I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" - Matthew 5:17

Salvation has always come through atoning blood received by faith. "The life of the flesh is in the blood... it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul" (Leviticus 17:11), and "without shedding of blood is no remission" (Hebrews 9:22).

The first covenant (The Law - Mosaic Covenant) was not bad, but it could not fix the human problem of sin. God gave Israel a Law that was "holy, and just, and good" (Romans 7:12), yet the people "continued not in my covenant" (Hebrews 8:9), and the Law could only expose sin, not remove it (Romans 3:20). Being weak "through the flesh" (Romans 8:3), it was written on stone outside the person, so it could instruct but not change the heart. Its sacrifices were repeated year after year and could never make the worshipper perfect (Hebrews 10:1), and its priests were mortal and imperfect (Hebrews 7:23, 28). A new covenant was needed to change the people themselves. God promised to write His law on their hearts, give them a new heart and His Spirit, and forgive their sins completely and permanently (Jeremiah 31:33-34; Ezekiel 36:26-27). Christ's one sacrifice and permanent priesthood makes this possible (Hebrews 10:10-14). As Hebrews 8:7 puts it, if the first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second. So God promised something new, through the prophet Jeremiah, a New Covenant, where the Lord says:

"Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." - Jeremiah 31:31-34

The New Covenant was promised to "the house of Israel" and to "the house of Judah," so it begins with the Jewish people. The first believers in the Messiah - Jesus, were all Jews: the apostles, the 3,000 who believed at Pentecost (Acts 2), and the earliest churches. The Church did not start as a separate religion beside Israel. It began as a Jewish community that recognized its Messiah.

Gentiles were then welcomed in. Paul says that before Christ came, they (the Gentiles) were "strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). But now, "But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13). They were not given a second covenant. They were brought into the same one, sealed by the same Blood.

How do Gentiles enter the covenant? In the same way Abraham did: by faith in Christ, as a gift of Grace, not by keeping the Law or by becoming Jewish. The Bible says:

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast" - Ephesians 2:8-9

Step by step, the New Testament describes it this way:

1. Hear the Gospel and believe in Christ: "There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek... whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Romans 10:12-13).
2. Be cleansed by His Blood: Faith places a believer in Christ under the Blood that sealed the covenant, so sins are forgiven and remembered no more (Ephesians 1:7; 2:13; Hebrews 8:12).
3. Receive the Holy Spirit: The Spirit is the one who writes God's law on the heart, as Jeremiah and Ezekiel promised. Paul says the blessing of Abraham comes to the Gentiles "that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Galatians 3:14; see also Ephesians 1:13 and Ezekiel 36:27).
4. Be joined to the one body: No circumcision or conversion to Judaism is required. Peter says God gave the Gentiles the Spirit, "purifying their hearts by faith," and that Jew and Gentile alike are saved "through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 15:8-11).

Paul had already made the same point in Galatians 3:7-9: "they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham," and Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles through faith when it promised Abraham, "In thee shall all nations be blessed." Abraham is therefore the father of all who believe, Jew or Gentile (Romans 4:11-12). Paul's picture is an olive tree (Romans 11:17-24). Israel is the cultivated tree with its root in Abraham and the promises. Some branches were broken off in unbelief (unbelieving Jews), and Gentile believers, who are compared to as a wild olive, were grafted in. Paul adds a warning: "...it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you" (Romans 11:18). Gentiles do not replace Israel, and they are not a separate tree. They share in the same root.

The result is one family. Christ "hath made both (Jew and Gentile) one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us" (Ephesians 2:14), creating "one new man" from the two (Ephesians 2:15). Gentile believers are "fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God" (Ephesians 2:19), and Paul calls them "fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ" (Ephesians 3:6). Galatians 3:28-29 says the same: in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, and those who belong to Christ are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. So the Church is made up of Jews and Gentiles together, one people of God under one covenant. This is also why the writer of Hebrews, addressing believers, quotes Jeremiah 31 in full and applies it to the whole community of faith (Hebrews 8:8-12; 10:16-17).

Under Sinai, the Law was carved on stone tablets outside the person. Under the New Covenant, God writes it within, upon our hearts. Ezekiel adds the mechanism:

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you... and cause you to walk in my statutes" - Ezekiel 36:26-27

Paul calls believers a letter written "not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God... in fleshy tables of the heart" (2 Corinthians 3:3). So the New Covenant does not discard God's instruction; it internalizes it. Obedience moves from being an outward pressure to an inward desire, the same pattern we saw with Abraham: Grace first, then a faithful walk.

The promise that "they shall all know (ידע) me" uses the Hebrew verb "yada" (ידע). It is the same word used when "Adam knew (ידע) Eve his wife" (Genesis 4:1). It describes close, personal intimacy, not information about God. Jesus says the same in John 17:3: "This is life eternal, that they might know (ידע) thee the only true God."

The final promise is forgiveness: "I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." When Hebrews 8:12 quotes it in Greek, it uses the double negative ou me, an emphatic "never, by any means." God is not saying a certain sin might slip His mind. He is saying He will never again hold it against us.

In Hebrew thought, to "remember" is to act on something, so "remember no more" means the sin will no longer be charged to the account. That is why Hebrews 10:17-18 concludes that where sins are forgiven, "there is no more offering for sin." The debt is not postponed each year; it is paid in full.

At the Last Supper Jesus took the cup and said, "This cup is the new testament (διαθηκη - covenant) in my blood, which is shed for you" (Luke 22:20), the same Greek word diatheke (διαθηκη) is translated "covenant" in most modern versions; see also 1 Corinthians 11:25). He was claiming Jeremiah's promise as His own.

Now the picture from Genesis 15 comes full circle. In Abraham's covenant, God alone passed between the pieces and bound Himself to bear the penalty if the covenant failed. At the cross, God the Son bore it. "For this is my blood of the new testament (διαθηκη - covenant), which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). Hebrews calls it "the blood of the everlasting covenant (διαθηκη)" (Hebrews 13:20).

What the New Covenant gives

1. A finished atonement: Christ's one offering does what yearly sacrifices could not (Hebrews 9:11-15; 10:10-14).
2. A changed heart: God's law is written within our hearts, by the Holy Spirit (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:26-27).
3. A known God: intimate relationship with Him, from the least to the greatest (Jeremiah 31:34).
4. Complete forgiveness: sins remembered no more (Hebrews 8:12).

From Noah to Abraham to Sinai to Jeremiah, one story runs through the covenants: God keeps His promises, and what we could not do, He did Himself. We do not obey in order to be saved. We are saved by the Blood of Christ, and the Holy Spirit then writes on our hearts, the life that the Law could only describe.