The New Covenant

by PRASHER, G. | Category: Bible Covenants | Oct 2007

Its institution

After keeping the Passover with His apostles on the evening of His betrayal, the Lord Jesus introduced a new ordinance to be observed in His remembrance with broken bread and outpoured wine. Of the outpoured wine He said, ‘... this is My blood of the new covenant which is shed for many for the remission of sins’ (Mat.26:28).

The nation of Israel had been privileged to serve Jehovah under the Sinaitic Covenant for about 1500 years. The introduction of the New Covenant made the former covenant obsolete. As we read in Hebrews 8:13: ‘In that He says,"A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away’. The New Covenant is based upon the shedding of the blood of Christ for the remission of sins. That sacrifice, infinitely superior to the former shedding of the blood of bulls and goats, would never need to be repeated: ‘but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself’ (Heb.9:26).

Foretold through Jeremiah

Jeremiah fulfilled his many years of prophetic ministry during a period of divine judgement on the kingdom of Judah. The Babylonians overran the country, besieged and finally destroyed Jerusalem, laying waste the magnificent temple built by Solomon, and carrying away many of the Jewish people into exile. Yet through the deep darkness of that era there shone out the glorious prophecy of God's intention to make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah:

‘Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when 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 lead them out of the land of Egypt ... But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people’ (Jer.31:31-34). This prophecy will have direct fulfilment for the nation of Israel during the future millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. For ‘God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew’ (Rom.11:2), although ‘blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

The Deliverer will come out of Zion,

And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;

For this is My covenant with them,

When I take away their sins’ (Rom.11:25-27).

Through the prophet Zechariah we learn that

‘In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David

And for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness’ (13:1).

Their national sin having been cleansed, their attitude to God's wishes will be transformed as they willingly embrace their millennial blessings under the terms of the New Covenant. However, blessings deriving from that Covenant were to extend far beyond the nation of Israel.

New Covenant blessings for all who believe the gospel of God's grace

‘And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death ... that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.’ (Heb.9:15)

Romans 8:30 preciously confirms that such believers are viewed by God as 'called', 'justified' and 'glorified'. The great promise of Jeremiah 31:34 has application to each believer in the Saviour: ‘I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.’ From this perspective the New Covenant may be viewed as 'that dispensation of the grace of God offered to men by the preaching of the gospel ... It is received by faith in the atonement and redemption wrought by Christ's death'.

Fuller blessings entered into by obedience as Christian disciples

However, the full enjoyment of New Covenant blessings in this day of grace 'only comes through reception of all its requirements, embraced in ‘the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3)'. This requires a people gathered together on a divinely revealed foundation, as seen in New Testament churches of God under apostolic leadership.

A better Covenant

The superiority of the New Covenant is emphasized in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Through it ‘there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God’ (7:19). The high priests were appointed under the Law without an oath, but the Lord Jesus, (‘... with an oath by Him who said to Him:

"The LORD has sworn

And will not relent,

'You are a priest forever

According to the order of Melchizedek'"),

by so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant’ (7:21-22). A better covenant indeed! For it had been enacted on better promises resulting from the once-completed atoning work of the Lord Jesus. The former covenant with Israel at Sinai gave access only once a year into the Most Holy Place of an earthly sanctuary. But the New Covenant provided continuing access for God's people into the heavenly sanctuary itself.

‘Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith …’ (Heb.10:19-22). Writing to disciples in churches of God, the apostle Peter reminded them that they had formerly not been a people, but through God's mercy had now become the people of God. Associated together, they are described as ‘a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ’ (1 Pet.2:5). Their weekly remembrance of the Lord in the breaking of bread and outpouring of wine would provide an appropriate occasion to fulfil together this aspect of their spiritual service.

An everlasting covenant

‘Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will’ (Heb.13:20,21).

This reference to the New Covenant as the everlasting covenant would seem to imply that future divine purposes, not yet revealed by God, will also be based on the new covenant in His blood. We have considered the coming millennial blessings to Israel nationally; their extension to other nations of the world at that time is illustrated from Zechariah 14:16-21. ‘And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain.’ Certain festivals will be maintained for their commemorative value, but their significance will be enhanced by the enrichment of new covenant blessings.

Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant

Hebrews 12:18-24 presents a vivid contrast between Israel's terrifying experience at the giving of the Law at Mount Sinai and that of believers in New Testament churches of God. At Sinai even Moses admitted, ‘I am exceedingly afraid and trembling’, whereas in the context of spiritual worship by disciples in the churches we read:

‘But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel’ (Heb.12:22-24).

Reflection on these remarkable heavenly realities to which we have been brought by divine grace will deepen our appreciation of God's holiness and impress on us the need for the utmost reverence in our worship before Him.

‘Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot he shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire’ (Heb.12:28.29). Yet the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ as Mediator of the New Covenant before the face of God for us will be a strong encouragement to our entrance into the heavenly sanctuary with assurance, as enabled by the Holy Spirit.

PRASHER, G. | Oct 2007
Bible Covenants