THE NEW COVENANT
Introduction: On
Tuesday, September 15, with great interest, I watched the signing of the Middle
East peace agreement between Israel and the Arab nations of the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain. Here are the
excerpts of the speech of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “Ladies
and gentlemen, Mr. President, this day is a pivot of history.
It heralds new dawn of peace. For
thousands of years, the Jewish people have prayed for peace. For decades, the
Jewish state has prayed for peace. I am grateful to you, President Trump, for
your decisive leadership. You have unequivocally stood by Israel’s side. I’m thankful
to King Hamad of Bahrain and to you, foreign minister Abdullatif al-Zayani for
joining us.
Joining us in bringing hope to all
the children of Abraham. King
David expressed this basic truth thousands of years ago in our eternal capital
Jerusalem. His prayer, immortalized in the book of Psalms in the Bible, echos
from our glorious past and guides us towards a bright future. May God give
strength to his people. May God bless his people with peace.”
Interestingly this is called “Abraham Accords
Signing Ceremony.” Though
it is yet to be seen how far the Middle East Peace agreement will spread. As I
watched, I was reminded of some of the promises that God made to His people and
their partial fulfillment in real-time.
Mike Evans notes, “In my book, A
Great Awakening Is Coming, I investigated America’s past awakenings and the
events before each one. The conclusion? Our nation is ripe for a Third Great
Awakening. It’s coming! The Abrahamic Accord was not even in existence when my
book was published, yet it fits nicely with the direction of world events and
global spiritual awakening.”[1] It is about time for us to
shift our focus from the “Pandemic and Politics” and see what God is doing worldwide
to fulfill His purposes. Lord Jesus,
Come Back Soon!
This morning I would like to bring
your attention to several agreements between God and His people. We will see
how many such contracts recorded in the scriptures, their content, how they
were made, whether they were kept or broken, and their impact on us. In the
Bible, these agreements or contracts are called “The Covenants.” What do we
know about the Covenants?
I.
WHAT IS A COVENANT? A
covenant is a promise between two or more parties to perform specific actions.
The concept of Covenant is significant in the Scriptures.
The word testament is another word
for Covenant. The Bible is comprised of the Old and the New Covenants (The OT
& NT). Covenant was a well-known concept in ancient times, and
covenants could be made between two equal parties or between a king and a
subject. The king would promise certain protections, and the subject would
promise loyalty to the king. A covenant might be conditional or unconditional.
How were Covenants made in the Old Testament?
The Hebrew word berith is
derived from a root which means “to cut.” Hence, a covenant is a “cutting,” Animals
would be cut into two pieces. Pile them on either side, and the contracting
parties will pass between them in making a covenant, affirming that the same
should happen to them if they broke the Covenant. We see this process played out in the
Abrahamic Covenant.
In Genesis 12:1-3, we read about God’s
promise to Abraham, “2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and
make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will
bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the
families on earth will be blessed through you.” Abraham left his home country
and headed in the direction that God was showing him.
After
some time, he wanted to make sure how this promise was going to be fulfilled?
Let’s observe this fascinating process of God making a covenant with Abraham.
Genesis 15:9-18. God told Abraham to bring a goat, a ram, and two birds.
He
asks him to cut the animals into half and place them side by side. When the Sun
was going down, Abraham fell into a deep sleep. While he was asleep, God
explains what happens to Abraham’s descendants and how he will deliver them.
When
Abraham woke up from his sleep, he sees a smoking firepot and a flaming torch
pass between the halves of the carcasses indicating the presence of God. What
does this signify? God put Abraham to sleep because the Covenant did not
involve any promise on Abraham’s part. He did not walk through the pieces as a
pledge. Therefore, fulfilling this Covenant does not rest on Abraham but God. Has this been fulfilled? Yes, some of it
has been fulfilled in the past and a bit more of it we have witnessed in the
past week, but the finality of it will be fulfilled when Christ establishes His
Kingdom when he returns to the earth for the second time.
Before
we go further, let’s look at the number of covenants God made with His people.
1.Edenic Covenant, Gen 1:26-28 2. Adamic Covenant Gen 3:14-19, 3. Noahic
Covenant Gen 8:20-9-6, 4. Mosaic Covenant Ex 20:1-31:18 5. Palestinian Covenant,
Deut 30:1-10 6. Davidic Covenant, 2 Sam 7:4-17, 7. New Covenant, Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Hebrews 8:6-13. Please
read about them at home.
In
chapter eight, verse six, the author talks about a better covenant with God,
based on better promises and then introduces a New Covenant. This New Covenant
supersedes the Old Covenant. Before we
look into it and understand how it impacts us know what do we know about the
Old Covenant?
II THE OLD COVENANT
The
Old Covenant was a conditional or bilateral agreement that God made with the
Israelites on Mount Sinai. In Exodus twenty, we read about God giving ten
commandments for the Covenant community of Israel. It was the introduction of
the Law, of which the entire Israelite community was expected to obey. They
were blessed when they followed and punished when they disobeyed the Law. Moses reminds the Israelites at a later time
about the Covenant that God made with them. Deut 4:13, “He proclaimed his
covenant—the Ten Commandments which he commanded you to keep, and which he
wrote on two stone tablets.” Those stone tablets were kept in the Ark of the
Covenant.
The Old Covenant
required repeated sacrifices of animals for the cleansing of people’s sin. (Heb,
10:4). Under the Old Covenant, only the high priest could enter the Most Holy
Place where God’s presence dwelt and that too only once a year.
The Old Covenant pointed people to
Christ. The Apostle uses the metaphor of a guardian to explain its ultimate purpose
“The Law was our
guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with
God through faith. And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the Law as
our guardian.” Gal 3:24-25.
One truth that we must not forget is that we are not under
the Old Covenant but the New Covenant. Many false teachers today urge people to
legalistically keep the Law, or at least part of it, to please God. We must realize that we don’t live by the Law
but by the Spirit. The Law brings death, and the Spirit gives life. Therefore,
we must reject any such legalism.
III.
THE NEW COVENANT (Hebrews 8:6-13)
Vs. 6-8 “But now Jesus, our High
Priest, has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood,
for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God, based on
better promises. If the first Covenant had been faultless, there would have
been no need for a second covenant to replace it.” But when God found
fault with the people, he said: “The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will
make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.”
The author here was taking their
audience back to what God prophesied through the prophet Jeremiah in 586 BC. We
read about it in Jeremiah 31:31-34. This prophecy, in its entirety, is quoted
in Hebrews 8:8-12. Jeremiah has pointed Israelites to an appointed time.
It will be the era of Jesus Christ,
God’s son, who will be coming into the world to fulfill the New Covenant. Let’s
look at what is involved in this New Covenant and how and when it will be
fulfilled. Vs., 10, “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.” In contrast to the Mosaic Covenant under
which Israel failed, God promised a New Covenant.
This Covenant is not only meant for
Israel but Gentiles as well. This is fulfilled with the coming of Christ and empowering
of the Holy Spirit. Remember, at the last supper with his disciples; this is
what Jesus announced. Luke 22:20, “After supper, he took another cup of wine
and said, “This cup is the new Covenant between God and his people an agreement
confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.”
Whenever we partake in communion, we
are reminded of this New Covenant made by the blood of Christ until Jesus
returns. I Cor 11:25. Under the New Covenant, we are given the opportunity to
receive salvation as a free gift. Ephesians 2:8–9, “God saved you by his grace
when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation
is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about
it.”
Jesus promised to come into all
those who would open up their hearts to Him and live in them. The Holy Spirit
that lives in us transforms us each day by leading us into all the truth. In
the Old Covenant, people obeyed God out of fear. In the New Covenant, Jesus
expects us to follow Him out of love, not out of compulsion or obligation.
Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my
commandments.” Mark 12:30-31, “you must love the Lord your God with all your
heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. ‘The second is
equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” As I said earlier, we
belong to the New Covenant. Therefore, our responsibility is to obey these two
commandments out of love for Christ. Let’s ask ourselves a question, how well
do I love God, and how well do I love my neighbor? Let’s pray that God will give us the grace to
love others as Christ loved us. Amen!
