By Jeannie Horton
NEW COVENANT BASED ON BETTER PROMISES
INTRODUCTION
This scripture was a prophecy from God first spoken to the prophet Jeremiah. It gave people hope of the coming Messiah. So, when it was spoken many years later by Christ, it was a fulfillment. Jesus came to fulfill a new and better covenant.
The word covenant is mentioned about 300 times in the Bible. Covenants were serious business in Bible times. If you made a covenant with someone, they were often sealed with blood, long-lasting, and not meant to be broken. In the scriptures, there are covenants between God and humanity. Many of them are found in the Old Testament: only one in the new.
What is known as the Mosaic Covenant, its primary focus was on laws and regulations that nobody could follow perfectly. This covenant revealed their sins and only proved the people needed a Savior. Christ didn’t come to abolish the law but fulfill it. He came to save the people, to give them hope and eternal life. With the death and resurrection of Jesus, the old covenant became obsolete. Jesus provided a way for a better, new, and final covenant. The new is based on better promises of forgiveness, faith, and a relationship with God.
With the New Covenant, we are to have faith in God, believe in Christ as our Savior: that He died for the sins of humanity and has given us eternal life, our sins have been completely forgiven, and we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit. There are four provisions of the New Covenant: 1. Regeneration: God’s law is now written on believer's minds and hearts. 2. A national restoration: We now have a fulfilled promised relationship with Him. 3. Personal ministry of the Holy Spirit: All will know God. 4. Full justification: Our sins are forgiven and forgotten.
1. REGENERATION: GOD’S LAW NOW WRITTEN ON BELIEVERS MINDS AND HEARTS
In the time of Judaism, people were living any way they wanted, and laws needed to be established. The Mosaic Covenant is named after Moses. With this covenant, there was a law for just about anything from what you ate, wore, your relationships, how you worshiped God, your health, crimes, and the foods you ate. There were over 600 laws people needed to follow or face the consequences of their sins. The Ten Commandments were also a part of the Mosaic Law. They were given to Moses when he was on Mount Sinai. They were ten principles related to moral and ethical principles with other people and God, important to Judaism and Christianity. They were written on two stone tablets by God's finger and later contained in the Ark of the Covenant.
God knew the problem with the stone tablets were people’s hard hearts and refusal to obey the laws and commandments. He didn’t want His laws to be written on cold tablets but people’s hearts. But He needed to change their hearts. “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart” (Ezekiel 36:26).
The Mosaic Covenant shows God’s grace because it was made to them in His love. The laws and commandments only proved the people of that time needed a savior. Jeremiah heard the words of God speaking that He wanted to do a new thing: a new way of fellowshipping with His people, and the promise of a coming Savior and a New Covenant. Jesus came to free us from our sins. With His sacrifice on the cross, the New Covenant with God began. “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” (Hebrews 8:10). God’s laws are no longer written on cold stone tablets. They are written on our minds and hearts. We now have fellowship with God through the indwelling of God’s Spirit within our hearts forever when we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. The Spirit is our help in obeying God’s commandments.
II. A NATIONAL RESTORATION: BELIEVERS FULFILLED PROMISE WITH GOD, A RELATIONSHIP
God has always desired a relationship with His children. God created a perfect and beautiful home for all of us: to have full access to Him to walk and commune with. It was paradise. But sin entered. Adam was deceived, and we lost our close relationship with God, and death was brought to all of us. But Christ came and brought atonement for all through His one-time blood sacrifice. Through Him, we have forgiven of sins and eternal life. We have been brought close to God as it was always intended. With the New Covenant that Christ fulfilled, we now can come boldly to the throne of God.
The promise from the book of Leviticus has been fulfilled: “I will walk among you: I will be your God, and you will be my people” (Leviticus 26:12). God promises to walk among us, and we will be His people: to supply all of our needs with His goodness, grace, and protection. As the people of Leviticus journeyed, God promised to go with them. They didn’t need to be afraid, and they didn’t need to worry about their needs being met. God was with them! He would provide for all of their needs and protect them from their enemies: man and Satan. This holds true for us today. If we are in the will of God, He will open the doors for us to succeed, and He will provide for all of our needs along the way. We have been chosen, adopted, redeemed, and sanctified for His purposes. He isn’t going to let anyone or anything interfere with His good plan. If the God who created the universe is for us, who can be against us? No one.
To seal the deal of God’s fellowship with us, His Spirit resides within us. The gift of the Spirit was given to us when Christ ascended to heaven after His death and resurrection. There are many names of the Holy Spirit: Helper, Counselor, Comforter, Interceder, Strengthener, and Sanctifier. Christ couldn’t be everywhere during His time on earth. He desires for us to do even greater works than He did. With the Holy Spirit residing within us, He can do these works throughout the world through us. We are in partnership with Him. When we align our will with His and desire to work with Him, we can do all those good works with Him right by our side, making it possible.
III. PERSONAL MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT: ALL WILL KNOW GOD
With the old covenant’s, there wasn’t any public instruction of God’s word. When the synagogues were made, the people were taught locally by prophets who just read the law. The gospel was not extended past the temples and synagogues. “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” (Hebrews 8:11). It wasn’t until the New Covenant that God’s word was taught publicly, and the ministry extended to other regions by Christ and His disciples.
We have the indwelling Holy Spirit to teach each of us individually: He speaks to our hearts and minds. The New Covenant focuses on believers having a personal and intimate relationship with God through Christ, as well as the Holy Spirit.
God’s desire always was to have a deep and abiding relationship with His children. Because of Christ's death and resurrection, and through our sanctification, we can have a personal relationship with the Father. We can do this by having faith in Him. The definition of faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. We have our salvation and relationship with God because of our faith.
In many areas of the world, we are blessed to have churches to learn God’s word, schools and the Bible is readily available. But it is the Holy Spirit who is our greatest teacher and goes with us everywhere. Knowing His word and learning to listen to His voice is crucial in our walk with the Lord.
IV. FULL JUSTIFICATION: OUR SINS ARE FORGIVEN AND FORGOTTEN 397
The people of the Old Testament dealt with their sins through atonement: reconciling themselves to God. They did this through the sacrifices of animals. Sin is ugly and brings death. But blood meant life; it is essential to it. Only blood could reverse the curse of sin. “In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness” (Hebrews 9:22). Because of the Mosaic Covenant, access to God was limited. Only the high priest could atone for people’s sins. On the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies: a place where God dwelt, and he could only do it once a year. He would go in and offer a flawless animal sacrifice to God for the sins of the people. The problem is that the sacrifice only covered their sins; they couldn’t be wholly forgiven. The high priest had to keep coming in every year to offer the sacrifice over and over.
The Mosaic Covenant was not a perfect solution. In the old Levitical system of priesthood, the priest’s responsibility was to offer the blood sacrifices required by the Mosaic Law. Nobody could follow every one of the laws completely. If you broke one law, you broke them all. The people’s hearts needed to be changed, and the only way this could happen was through God and our Savior.
Through Christ, the old Levitical system of priesthood was removed with a better covenant. When He came to earth, He kept the law perfectly. Christ became our new and forever High Priest. He died without sin or blemish on the cross for all of our sins. His ultimate sacrifice of Himself was perfect. With His one-time sacrifice, our sins are now gone and remembered no more. Christ entered into God’s presence and sat down at the right hand of God. His shed blood wiped away our sins forever, entirely forgotten by God. Gone are the days of insufficient animal sacrifices. He has provided a way for a new and better covenant with God.
We are no longer living under the law, but the disposition of God’s grace: His unmerited favor. His grace reaches to all of humankind, to the ends of the world. We do not deserve God’s grace, but He gives it to us lovingly and freely.
CONCLUSION
We no longer under an obligation to follow the many laws that were once written on cold, hard stone tablets. We are living under a new and better covenant with better promises. God's word is now written on our hearts and minds because of Christ's ultimate sacrifice of Himself on the Cross. Gone are the days of the animal sacrifices that only covered sins. Our sins are completely forgiven.
With the gift of the indwelling of God’s Spirit, He is our helper, our teacher, our interceder, and guide. We are God’s hands and feet. When we align our will with His and work with Him, He will empower us to do all the good works that He intends for us.
We now have complete access to God and fellowship with Him, as He always intended. It is His fulfilled promise to us. He desires to have a close and relationship with all of us. God has continuously poured out His love for us. We need to reach out to Him in faith and say, “yes, I believe in You, Your Son. I desire to follow after and walk in Your ways.”
