God’s Promise of a New Covenant

Thus far we have seen five of the six covenants that God has made with humanity:

1. God has blessed humanity with a purpose – He blessed us to be his image bearers as we steward his creation around us – Adamic, or Edenic, Covenant.
2. We have a promise of preservation from God – if we but choose it – Noahic Covenant.
3. We have God's promise of blessing – which extends to all those with faith in the God of Adam, Noah, and Abraham – Abrahamic Covenant.
4. We have God's promise of becoming a Holy Nation – that through our voluntary obedience we are set apart God's people as God's holy nation. We have a Spiritual national identity – Mosiac Covenant.
5. We have God's promise of an eternal King to reign over this Holy Nation – Davidic Covenant.
6. We have God's promise of a New Covenant.  God Promised a new, eternal life in Christ – Messianic Covenant.

We conclude this six-part study with a look at Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Luke 22: 14-20. 

How long does it take for the "new" to wear off something?  

Newness wears off quickly. A new car can lose its new car smell and get scratched quickly. New clothes can quickly become last year’s fashion. We can soon tire of new jobs or new relationships. Why? 

Because the word new refers to something fresh or established for the first time, or unused.  New things rapidly become un-new as we become familiar with them..."Oh, its the same old...something."

But God has promised us something new that will last: an unending relationship with Him that comes through our trust in Christ. Unfortunately many do not seek this new relationship with God...."Oh, it’s the same old God... I don’t believe…". 

But this relationship retains its “newness” because it will not fade. “[God's]  mercies never end. They are new every morning” Lamentations 3:22-23 tells us.

The Israelites had a cyclical relationship with sin and covenant renewals. On numerous occasions the people had celebrated spiritual revivals only to fall back into sin. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God revealed that what they needed, and that what He would provide, was complete forgiveness through what God termed a “new covenant.” This new covenant would be different from all the previous ones. It would involve a heart transformation, a transformation of the very core of the individual; and it would be permanent.

Jeremiah 31:31-32

31 “Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 
32 This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—my covenant that they broke even though I am their master”—the Lord’s declaration. 

Jeremiah lived at a time of deep upheaval in Jewish history, most significantly the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC followed by the exile of the Jewish people to Babylonia.  He was one of the major prophets of the Bible whose life and sayings are collected in the biblical book that bears his name. His prophecies, among the most stark and pessimistic in all of biblical literature, were aimed as a rebuke to Jews who had surrendered to idolatry and depravity.  In these verses Jeremiah points out that.  God will establish a new covenant unlike previous covenants.

This new covenant would not come immediately in Jeremiah's time.The is set in the times of the “Day of the Lord” or the climax of human history. The Lord intended for the Mosaic law to remain in effect until such time as the new covenant was instituted. The Old Testament prophets were not told specifically when this time would come. The New Testament indicates that this new covenant went into effect with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As we learn through the Bible, following Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and ascension the Holy Spirit did indeed come to live with and in the faithful. The time of God With Us (Emanuel), the “Day of the Lord” was from that time until the current time, and until such time as the second coming occurs.

Because these words come from God, they can be trusted that they are true and will come to pass. This covenant is unilateral; it is the Lord’s, YHWH’s,  covenant with His people. This is emphasized by “I will” appearing five times in Jeremiah 31:31-34. It is God who would take the initiative in establishing this new covenant with humanity.

God had always dealt with mankind through covenants—the covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. In each case, there were certain stipulations of God that had to be met in order to receive the full benefits of the promises of the covenants. Jeremiah 31 introduces the promise of a new covenant. It specifically lists the promises contained in the new covenant.

This covenant in many ways is a fulfillment of the covenants given to Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David. The phrase new covenant is not found anywhere else in the Old Testament. The recipients of the new covenant are expressly presented: the house of Israel (Northern Kingdom) and the house of Judah (Southern Kingdom). The two nations would be unified and this     promise was to the whole nation, not just selected parts. This new covenant would also be offered to the Gentiles because the people that God chose had chosen to ignore God's new covenant offered to them.

Think of all these covenants described this way: 

• God created humanity and assigned it a job – care for this garden and make more humans.  

• God selected a portion of humanity, the Homo Sapiens, or “wise human”, species – to carry forward the faith in the God of the universe following a world wide cataclysm.  

• God chose one human to become the father of God's nation – but he, through the leading of his wife, instead became the father of many nations. 

• God chose a mediator-prince to carry God's people from captivity to the world –  leading them as they wandered through the wilderness of the world toward become God's nation.  

• God chose a King to lead his nation – and this king's dynasty was the one from which God's Messiah becomes the eternal King OF God to rule over the Earth, and all of the things and territory within it.

• God establishes a new covenant though his anointed-one (messiah) – Now the time of Emanuel, God with US is upon us..

Jeremiah tells us of this new covenant that this Messiah King will bring.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors God tells Jeremiah in verse 32. The covenant had always been the primary method by which God chose to communicate with and relate to His people, beginning with Abraham and continuing through the generations of his descendants. 

Through the Mosaic covenant, God further detailed the nature of the relationship He wanted to have with His people and how they were to live faithfully in that covenant relationship, but the new covenant was necessary because Israel kept failing to keep, and lost sight of the meaning of the old covenant.  

God's Shining glory (Shekinah) left Solomon's Temple at the Babylonian exile.  Though the Jewish nation, led by one of David's descents, returned to rebuild the Temple, it was arguably because they wanted their needs and desires met rather than through the desire for a passionate relationship with God.  There is no record that God's Shekinah returned to the Second Temple.  Without God’s Shekinah, and without Emanuel, a relationship with God was, at best, hit and miss…just as it STILL is when one tries to live without God.

God uses loving, gentle imagery with Jeremiah.  He says On the day I took them by the hand, is imagery of a loving, gentle, and patient father. As a Father, God led His children the Israelites by the hand and guided them to the promised land. 

God had initiated the Mosaic covenant through His grace. He had freed the Israelites from Egypt and chosen them to be His people out of all the nations of the world. However, in order to live in covenant relationship with Him, God gave the Israelites the statutes, decrees, and commandments of the Mosaic law which He expected them to keep. Through human interpretation, the Israelites time and time again failed to keep the covenant by losing the spirit of the law in favor of the letter of the law. Therefore, God initiated a new covenant that would address the inability of the people to be faithful to the old covenant.

The phrase I am their master in verse  32 in Hebrew is literally translated “I am their husband.” God often described His relationship with the Israelites as a marriage. He was the faithful husband, whereas they were His faithless and adulterous wife who had broken their vows of marriage.

God tells Jeremiah, to paraphrase it, that:

• I created humans from dirt and they agreed to do a job.  They didn't.  

• I wiped out all of the human species except for Homo sapiens, "wise humans" and showed them that if they but chose to heed God they had my promise of preservation.  They forgot. 

• I promised blessings through the lineage of Abram, I even promised to make Abram the "George Washington" of his country – the Father of God's chosen people.  But Abram instead became Abraham the Father of many nations.  

• So I created a Holy nation, taking them out of the world and building a spiritual nation from them.  They forgot me and wanted to be like other human nations.  

• So I gave them the king that they asked for.  He turned against me.  So I chose a king who was a man after my own cor (heart). He wanted to build a permanent monument to ME so that people would not forget me.  After his death they again forgot me.  

• I dispersed them to their neighbors to live in the world to again learn that life without me is not as beneficial as life with me.  

• In time I gave them my anointed one of the lineage of David to be the King of all kings.  

Jeremiah shows us how God makes this covenant more permanent:

Jeremiah 31:33-34

33 “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 
34 No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.”

This introduces the new covenant that God would establish.  It strongly emphasizes that God is the initiator. He will do for His people what they were incapable of doing under the old covenant.  

The phrase House of Israel  is a reference to the united people of God. They were one people. The new covenant would be established after the people returned from their exile in Babylon.  

Within them  in verse 33 refers to a person’s innermost being. This is where the new covenant is radically different from all previous ones. Instead of simply changing the covenant relationship with His people or instituting new terms or elements because they had broken the old covenants, God made a way by which the people could keep His teachings. He would place them within His people. The prophets elsewhere refer to this process in terms of receiving a “new heart” and “new spirit”. This transformation is done through God’s Spirit. The New Testament refers to this as being “born again”, the “new birth” and “regeneration and renewal”. 

God would write His teachings (of the new covenant) on people’s hearts, another term which by extension refers to a person’s innermost being. Perhaps, in a way THIS is the beginning of the digital age. "Look I won't tell you or show you, I will just download straight into your core...IF you want it!"

It encompasses the mind, emotions, will, and intellect. The new covenant has an inner motivation that was lacking in the old covenants. This promise of a new heart also carries with it a sense of permanence and will be enabled through the Holy Spirit.  This is what the Bible is referring to when it talks of building a new Temple, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  We, ourselves, are God’s Temple.  The Spirit of God lives within us, and with us.  This is truly the age of Emanuel, God with Us.  We have the choice of being in relationship with God, or ignoring God completely and living in captivity to the World and under the influence of chaos.

One of the most striking features of the new covenant would be a reciprocal claim of possession – truly a marriage relationship. God’s people would now belong to God, and God would belong to His people. Where the Israelites failed in living up to being God’s people because of their disobedience, now under the new covenant God’s people will demonstrate they belong to Him through their obedience to His commands.

With the inauguration of the new covenant in the life of a person comes an inward change whereby God reveals Himself to the individual personally through Jesus Christ. However, while every believer knows Jesus, all disciples still need instruction and encouragement in the faith. So, this promise has a future aspect which will only be fulfilled in eternity when every believer will know the Lord more completely.  While the word know (yada) can refer to the acquisition and understanding of facts, here it has the meaning of an intimate, personal knowledge that comes about when two people are in a committed relationship with one another. With God’s teachings written on their hearts, all His people will have a personal relationship with God through faith which will entail a desire and ability to obey God's will. This relationship, the goal of the previous covenants, is accomplished in the new covenant through Jesus Christ.  The basis for the relationship between God and people under the new covenant is total forgiveness, which was accomplished once and for all through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. 

Because Jesus has paid the penalty for all the sins of the believer, there is no longer any need to bring to mind or mention those sins.  But as demonstrated through all of the previous covenants, humanity can use reminding from time to time.  

Jesus provides us with this reminder.

Luke 22:14-20

14 When the hour came, he reclined at the table, 
and the apostles with him. 
15 Then he said to them,“I have fervently desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 
16 For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled 
in the kingdom of God.” 
17 Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks, he said,
“Take this and share it among yourselves. 
18 For I tell you, from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
20 In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said,“This cup is the new covenant in my blood, 
which is poured out for you.”

Jesus looked forward and anticipated sharing this meal, this last supper, with the apostles. Jesus had many things to share with them and His time as the Son of Man was coming to a close as he took up his mantle as the Son of God. 

Because of his sacrifice humanity was, or can, overcome its course (curse) initiated by Adam and Eve.  As we choose to become a part of the family of God we too transition from the Son (descendant) of (hu)Man to the Son (descendant) of God.

Jesus desired to teach them about the new covenant that was about to be established through His death. It also demonstrated His humanity in that He desired to share table fellowship with His friends.  Jesus was probably suggesting that His upcoming death would prevent Him from sharing future Passover meals with His disciples. Until the great banquet at the consummation of history known as the “Marriage Feast of the Lamb” when all believers throughout history will join in this feast with their risen Savior in the Kingdom of God.

Jesus looked forward to the consummation of history when the kingdom of God will come in its fullness and all God’s people will celebrate by sharing the messianic table at the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. At that time, the new covenant will also be completely fulfilled.

Unleavened bread was used in the Passover meal to remind the Israelites of their deliverance from Egypt. Jesus used a word picture, where the literal bread was symbolically associated with His body. Just as He broke the bread and gave it to His disciples to eat, so too His body would be broken on the cross for the sake of the Twelve and all of His students throughout history.  

Do this in remembrance of me refers to a commemoration or a memorial. Christians remember their Lord’s great sacrifice for them while they await His return.  Much as David intended the first Temple to be a memorial to God so that humanity could NOT forget, Jesus intends the last supper to be a memorial for citizens of God's Kingdom to continue to remember God and his covenants with humanity.

Only by the shedding of blood can sin be atoned for.  God pronounced the penalty for sin to humanity – death.  Abel brought an acceptable sacrifice of blood from his flocks that he devoted his life to raise and protect.  Cain brought a sacrifice that was not acceptable – he gathered together what God had already provided.  Jesus' sacrifice is the ultimate shedding of blood for humanity's sins.  Jesus’s sacrifice made salvation available to all. Those who repent of their sins and put their faith in Him receive this salvation. He is the only way of reconciliation with God the Father.

Those who say otherwise miss the target established by God.  For example, ALL can come to God on their own without God's anointed one, or that there are "other ways" rather than God's anointed one to God, but this is to miss the target established by God. God established humanity with a purpose to work.  Without purpose our energies of life are expended chaotically.  God is the God of order; chaos draws us away from God rather than towards God. When humans say, in effect, Divinity is wrong and humans are correct it is placing humanity in the place that ONLY God holds.  When humanity heeds Divinity, watches and learns, applies, remembers and follows God’s path then one is following after God.  God, through his covenants, has ILLUSTRATED to humanity that they can’t do it on their own. Through the Bible God has ILLUSTRATED to humanity that GOD has lived up to his covenant and all humanity need do is choose, remember and follow. 

God has promised the preservation of humanity, but as with Noah we have to CHOOSE to obey God's directives.  IF we do we have the promise of God's blessing.  Our voluntary obedience to God's directives sets us apart as a spiritual nation overseen by an eternal King who directs our actions to the glory of God's purposes.  

If humanity doesn't CHOOSE God or God's directives then how can they approach God?  If they are not obedient to the directives of God then how can they approach God as their sovereign?  If they are not a citizen of the Kingdom of God, then they are "illegal aliens" and do not receive the benefits of those who choose God.  

Stated in the lowest common denominator language that I can muster – If YOU don't choose God how can you expect God to choose you to receive the benefits of God.  Or even more succinctly, if you choose harmfulness and live by harmfulness then by what means can you expect goodness to flow from the ultimate goodness.  You have made YOUR choice (harmfulness) and get to live the curse (course) that you have chosen.

Those who HAVE chosen goodness, but who still are on the course (curse) of sinful humanity, can expect goodness to flow from the ultimate goodness until such time as we transition to live with ultimate goodness.

The probabilities that humanity, after some 300,000 years, has figured out a way to approach God without God's intervention is not a high probability (to put it sarcastically) but the promise of God's new covenant with humanity makes eternal life with God as simple as just making a choice.  

This is God's New Covenant with Humanity and the "newness" of this covenant will last eternally.