The New Covenant
A failure to grasp the relationship between the new covenant and prior covenants diminishes how the entire biblical storyline coheres and finds its culmination in Christ. Finally, a failure to misperceive that the new covenant has been already inaugurated through Christ is to obscure Christ’s work as the Last Adam, the definitive offspring of Abraham, the true and faithful Israelite, and the final son of David. Put simply, a proper appraisal of Christ’s work in inaugurating the new covenant magnifies the glory of Christ and the glory of God’s grace toward us in him.
This essay will seek to address the following three questions: How does the new covenant differ from the old covenant? How does the new covenant relate to God’s prior covenants with his people? Finally, in what sense did Christ fulfill the new covenant? These questions, while challenging for readers of Scripture, are necessary for us to have a right grasp of the Bible’s storyline, a right appreciation for Christ’s work on our behalf, and a right foundation for the church and the Christian life.
The New Covenant Transcends the Old Covenant
The descriptor “new” sets the new covenant in redemptive-historical contrast with the “old” covenant. The new covenant is new not merely in time but also in quality. As Hebrews 8 poignantly says it, the new covenant is qualitatively better than the old because it is founded on “better promises” (Heb 8:6). These promises are aptly summarized by Jeremiah 31:33–34, “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” We can summarize these promises as the internalization of the law, an inviolable covenant relationship between God and his people, a community-wide knowledge of God, and the final forgiveness of sins. Each of these promises contrasts with Israel’s experience under the old covenant and evinces at least four ways in which the new covenant transcends the old.
First, under the old covenant God did not internalize the law within his people. God gave the law on tablets of stone, but he did not transform the hearts of Israelites such that they would receive the law and desire to obey it (see 2 Cor. 3:3). Put another way, old covenant Israel was circumcised outwardly but not inwardly. In contrast with Israel’s experience, the new covenant promise to internalize the law means that God would circumcise the hearts of the covenant members (Deut. 30:6) and put within them his Spirit so that they would desire to obey God’s commands from the heart (Ezek. 36:26–27).
Second, the old covenant did not provide a lasting covenant relationship between God and his people. Immediately after God ratified the Sinai covenant with Israel, Israel broke the covenant by worshiping the golden calf. The new covenant’s promise of a relationship that is “not like the [Sinai] covenant . . . that they broke” (Jer 31:32) strongly suggests that the new covenant relationship forged between God and his people will never be broken. Accordingly, at times the biblical authors will depict the new covenant as a “covenant of peace” or an “everlasting covenant” (Isa 55:3; Ezek 34:25; 37:26; cf. Heb 13:20).
Third, the old covenant community was mixed in that only some of the covenant members possessed saving faith, whereas the majority were characterized by unbelief. Shot through the Old Testament is the notion of a faithful remnant within the broader covenant community. This remnant was often keenly felt to be minuscule (e.g., 1 Kgs. 19:10; Jer. 6:13). The new covenant’s promise is that the entire covenant community would “know the Lord” savingly, even “from the least of them to the greatest” (Jer 31:34). This portrays a vastly different experience for the covenant community, not only in their relationship to God but also to one another.
Finally, through the sacrificial system, the old covenant provided forgiveness of sins for Israel (e.g., Lev. 4:26; 4:31; 5:10). At the same time, such forgiveness was only temporary and provisional, since Israel needed to offer animal sacrifices for their sins repeatedly. Even more, as Hebrews 10 notes, animal sacrifices cannot actually provide forgiveness of sins, but only served as a constant reminder for Israel of their need for forgiveness (Heb. 10:3–4). Embedded within the old covenant, therefore, was a system impotent to deal definitively with sin in the covenant community. Set in contrast to this system is the new covenant promise of final and definitive forgiveness, such that God would “remember their sin no more” (Jer. 31:34), thus abrogating the necessity of repeated sacrifices for sin (Heb. 10:18).
The New Covenant Fulfills All God’s Covenant Promises
A right understanding of the new covenant takes into consideration not only how it is set in contrast with the old covenant but also how it fulfills all of God’s covenant promises throughout redemptive history, including the covenant at creation and the covenants with Abraham, Israel, and David.
At creation God gave Adam and Eve life and joy in the Garden of Eden, where God dwelt among them. They lost this paradise when they failed to trust and obey God’s word, which led to their eviction from the garden and the concomitant loss of life and joy in God’s presence. The new covenant relates to this loss by promising that through the new covenant the paradise lost would become paradise regained. Particularly, in the new covenant God promised to pour out his Spirit, recreating and giving life to a new sacred community whose beauty would match that of the Garden of Eden. Coinciding with Jeremiah’s new covenant promises is a depiction of the entire new and expanded Jerusalem as holy to the Lord (Jer. 31:38–40).
-
Where to Find Meaning in Our Social Media Saturated World
When you are drawn to time-wasting and distracting online content, you will do well to model your prayer on Moses’ words (Psalm 90:12): Lord, please teach me to number my days, hours, minutes, and seconds, that I may get a heart of wisdom. Or we could pray the words of the ageless hymn: “Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee.”
The average person’s thumb travels the equivalent of two marathons a year, scrolling through social media. The average person; not just teens or twenty-somethings! What would the ancient writer of Ecclesiastes have said of the amount of time we spend on TikTok, X, YouTube, and Instagram? He had everything he desired—pleasure, possessions, passion, and palaces—and denied himself nothing. Any millennial influencer would drool in envy. Yet, as he considered all he had acquired and achieved under the sun, he lamented that it failed to provide meaning (Ecclesiastes 1:2-3). Pointless. Unfulfilling. A chasing of the wind. How much more so the endless scrolling we do on our phones?
So what is it that keeps us coming back? Why are we so drawn to online content? To “social” media? How can we be more wise and discerning?
Social media isn’t so much designed to engage us as it is to retain us. The deeper we go and more time we spend the greater their revenue. Their algorithms are fine-tuned to identify what we like while also taking into consideration what or who we follow—information we freely share—to hold our attention. Social media platforms typically want a single thing: to make us scroll through one more image, meme, or video. Then another. And the next one.
What Are You Filling Your Eyes and Heart With?
The Internet and social media are, of course, neither good or evil. They’re neutral. They can be beneficial and enabling when used wisely. We can maintain contact with distant friends and family. And we can keep up to date with happenings in the industry we work in. Furthermore, with feeds, we can follow favourite blogs, hobbies, and sports teams. You may have come upon this article via Facebook or Instagram.
But the subtle temptation is to enter the social media maze and get sucked into a time-wasting vortex of distractions.
Read More
Related Posts: -
God Will Not Reject His People
Theological systems that reject the eternal security of the believer find motivation for outward deeds in earning or keeping one’s salvation. Lives are spent doing good deeds in hopes that they can merit the favor of God. But for those whose confidence rests in God’s saving power alone, we go forth serving Christ with joy and confidence. If our service goes unnoticed, we don’t care because we know God sees it and we serve to please Him.
I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! – Romans 11:1
The fear of rejection is perhaps one of the more influential considerations in our decision making. The choices we make, the conversations we choose to have or avoid, the way we spend our money; many times, these decisions are guided by our desire to avoid being rejected by others. The desire for a lasting acceptance seems an innate characteristic of humanity. If we are fortunate enough to somehow make it as part of the “in” group, the inner circle, we often take whatever steps we deem necessary to remain as such. To be numbered among the people of God is the best inner circle there could be, the most glorious collection of people there has ever been. To be a sinner saved by the grace of God alone through the atonement set forth in Christ is to be truly blessed, and so it begs the question: can one ever go from being part of the people of God to being separate from the people of God? There have been erroneous systems of Christianity throughout the centuries that have argued it is indeed possible to lose one’s salvation. A sacramental Roman Catholicism argues for the necessity of works to maintain one’s place within the family of God. An Arminian Protestantism denies the Reformed doctrine of eternal security. Both theological systems fly directly in the face of Scripture’s assertion that once numbered among the people of God, there is nothing that could ever remove you. Yet it begs one final question though: could God Himself remove you? Again, the Scriptures are clear: by no means!
Books have been written to prove this point from Scripture, so we’ll forego a lengthy discussion on proving this point. We’ll simply echo what Paul says in Romans 8: those whom God predestines, he also calls, justifies, and glorifies. Salvation is entirely of God from beginning to end. Or perhaps more poignantly, once we have been united to Christ by faith, we cannot be disunited, and our sins, both past and future, are covered by His blood.
Read More
Related Posts: -
The Scriptures, Christotelic
Jesus had no problem talking for some time, from passage to passage, starting in Genesis, about Himself. In these passages He illustrated that ALL of the Scripture was about Him. If Jesus believed that was true, and if He in fact expressed that it is so, then we are under compulsion to read the Bible in that light. The Scriptures, beginning in Genesis, are Christotelic—intentionally aimed at revealing Christ!
When the forlorn disciples met up with Jesus following His resurrection, it made the short trip from Jerusalem to Emmaus much more pleasant. Before revealing who He was and that indeed the Christ was alive from the dead, Jesus talked with them as a fellow pilgrim in life—but one who had extensive knowledge about the Scriptures. We find this story in Luke 24.
He rebukes them, but more as a human like them who is confounded that these men do not see the truth about the death of Christ three days earlier. He is rebuking them for not reading the Scriptures with understanding, and for being men with weak faith: “Oh foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?”
Read More
Related Posts:
