“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 brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord.
“But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Jeremiah 31:31-33 NLT
The New Covenant
The New Covenant is a promise God made to restore humanity’s fellowship with Him by forgiving their sins through Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross. This was God’s plan from the start. When Adam and Eve rebelled in the garden, God planned to reconcile us back to Himself. God started with the Old Covenant, which we find in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ fulfilled the New covenant predicted in the Old Testament on the cross.
God’s Promise
The Old Covenant was conditional. The covenant was between God and the nation of Israel. They were to obey the laws of God, and in return, He would bless and protect or punish them if they disobeyed.
When they sinned against God, they were to bring a sacrifice to God as an offering. This was only a temporary fix until the intimate sacrifice would come. Because the people could not go directly into the presence of God, a priest would bring the sacrifice for them.
The prophets Jeremiah
(Jeremiah 31:31, 33) and Ezekiel 36:26–27 foretold of the new covenant.
Promise Kept
God fulfilled His promise given to us by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Jesus Christ became the sacrifice for the sins of all people. A once and for all sacrifice. No more blood offerings needed to be given by a priest.
“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.” Hebrews 8: 10-12 NLT
The Old Covenant has been made obsolete by the New Covenant.
What does this mean for us today?
When God promised this covenant, it was a promise to Israel. When Jesus came, He went to the Jews to preach that He was the promised Messiah. He would save them. He did not stop with the Jews; Jesus reached out to others to show them the way of true life.
Christ’s death on the cross was to save both Jews and Gentiles from their sins. Jesus became the mediator between us and God. The veil was torn when Christ died—no more separation. We have direct access to God through Christ. Once Christ ascended into heaven, He gave us the indwelling of The Holy Spirit.
When we believe in Christ as our Savior, we have been restore our relationship with God, broken so long ago in the garden. We are a forgiven people.
Over the past couple of months, we have seen the faithfulness of God through His promises. Covenants are one of the ways God has illustrated His character to us in His written Word. Because of this, we know that He can be trusted with our lives.
From the beginning, he had a plan that He had already fulfilled—salvation for all who trust Him.
“There is no more blessed way of living than the life of faith based upon a covenant-keeping God – to know that we have no care, for He cares for us; that we need have no fear, except to fear Him; that we need have no troubles, because we have cast our burdens upon the Lord, and are conscience that He will sustain us.” Charles Spurgeon
Reference
Got Questions: What is the New Covenant? https://www.gotquestions.org/new-covenant.html
The Divine Covenants by Arthur W. Pink
Arthur Walkington Pink, The Divine Covenants (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1973), 154.
