Covenants Part 2
The New Covenant
A few weeks ago we started looking at 5 major covenants God has made in the Bible. We started off looking at the Nohaic Covenant seeing how God made a covenant ensuring the sanctity of life and also for the provision for life to continue. And of course there was the sign of the rainbow. We then looked at the Abrahamic Covenant. This covenant also chooses the Jewish people as the people of God through which the whole world will be blessed. It also defines the physical boundaries for Israel that is in so much dispute especially right now. The sign of circumcision was given for this covenant.
Which reminds me of a story in America where these three young friends, one a catholic minister, one and Anglican minister and one a Rabbi decided to practice how to convert someone by practicing on the local friendly bear. So the first day the Catholic Minister finds the bear and preaches to him and tries to get him to repent. The bear grunts a little and wanders off. The Catholic minister was quite happy with the result. The next day the Anglican minister finds the bear, preaches to him and sprinkles him with water. The bear was very happy to be sprinkled with water as it was a hot day and the Anglican minister thought he did very well. The next day they could not find the Rabbi anywhere. Eventually they found him in hospital all bandaged up! They said what happened and he said I preached and that went well, but I guess I should not have tried to circumcise him!
Getting back to the covenants!
We then looked at the temporary Mosaic Covenant. This covenant introduced over 600 different laws that the Jews had to keep and the many blessings that would arise if they kept these laws. But the condition was that Israel had to keep God’s laws, they had to live God’s way and live in a righteous manner. The sign of keeping the Sabbath was given for this covenant . Then finally we also looked at the Davidic Covenant, where God promises to make David’s name great and raise a descendant from David’s line whose kingdom will last forever. This covenant became the basis for the hope of the Messiah and hence the Messianic Covenant. Finally that brings us to the Messianic Covenant or the New Covenant.
While the Davidic Covenant formed the basis for the hope of a Messiah to the Jews and hence the Messianic Covenant, this Covenant was actually spelt out in the Old Testament by many different prophets. Amongst them Jeremiah told us what it was going to be, Isaiah told us who it was going to be and Ezekiel told us how it would be implemented!
In Jeremiah we read what this covenant is going to be
Jeremiah 31:31-34
31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,]”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God, and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
In Genesis, remember just before the great flood we read ;
The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. (Genesis 6:5)
So Jeremiah says
This New Covenant will cause a change in our hearts, in that the law, God’s law will be written on our hearts. In Genesis 6 every inclination was to sin, now that inclination will be to follow the word of God .
And so now by faith now we enter into a covenant of God whereby the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, of what is right and wrong in God’s eyes – not the worlds. It is this conviction in our hearts that is so encouraging because it reaffirms the very presence of the Holy Spirit within us! It is a confirmation of the New Covenant in us! Our very nature, our every inclination as it says in Genesis 6 was to rebel and sin but now the Holy Spirit guides us, convicts us (John 16:8) and leads us into repentance, one of the first acts of faith. So the New Covenant will change our heart.
Jeremiah writes “…. they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,”
In other words this is an intimate covenant, it is not only written on our heart but we will all know Him from the least to the greatest. And if you think back about how the disciples reclined at the table with Jesus and even leant on Him, you will understand just how intimate this covenant is, especially if you contrast it to “if you touch the mountain you die” type of relationship.
And we can have this relationship because this covenant is for the forgiveness of sins that all may come into the presence of God. Jeremiah writes “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” And so Eph 3:12 we read
12 In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.
So we can see this covenant is not made with a nation as the Mosaic Covenant was, but with individuals- you and me!
Isaiah goes on to tell who this Messiah will be
On the one hand we see a majestic King Isaiah 9:6-7
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.
Yet in Isaiah 53 we see Him as a suffering, despised and rejected man- “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering” Is 53:3
Isaiah 53:5 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Because of these contrasting images of a Messiah, some rabbis decided that there must be two messiahs, the Messiah ben Joseph, who would come and suffer, and the Messiah ben David, who would come as a conquering king. But there are not two Messiah’s coming once but one Messiah coming twice, once to suffer and once as King!
Zechariah confirms this
Zechariah 9:9
9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Just before Passover, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a colt of a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy Zechariah gave more than 500 years earlier. And the people shouted and rejoiced
The King came riding on a donkey and inIn Micah 5 we see that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.
Ezekiel then tells us how this will be done.
He tells us how this law will be written on our hearts. It is done by giving us a heart not of stone but flesh. Giving us soft hearts. And how will this be done? By filling us with the Holy Spirit!
Ezekiel 36:26-27
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Ezekiel says that in this New Covenant God will make our hearts softer, more sensitive to His ways by filling us with His Spirit
Let me give you a good example of how someone’s heart changed. John Newton who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace, in the 1700’s at a young age went to work on the slave ships, eventually captaining several slave ships and investing in the slave trade. After experiencing God and becoming a Christian he turned his back on the slavery busines and became an active campaigner against the slave trade. He had a complete change of heart. He wrote this about slavery “..[it] contradicts the feelings of humanity; [and] it is hoped, this stain of our National character will soon be wiped out” A softening and sensitivity of the heart. He and William Wilberforce eventually stopped the slave trade in the UK
Which brings us to Jesus himself who lived under the Mosaic Law, but by His death became the mediator of the New Covenant
If there was any doubt that Jesus was the Messiah the High Priest asked Him directly and he answered directly
Mark 14:61-62
61 … the high priest asked him, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?”
62 “I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
And Jesus goes on to say in John 1:12, whoever, believes in His name , He gave the right to become children of God, born not of natural descent, nor of human decision but born of God and ……whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16). And this is essentially the New Covenant. But because its an individual covenant we need to make some individual decisions. Lets look at some key points
We have to believe in Jesus. Now this is not the same as believing that He exists. You believe that I exist, but that is not the same as believing in me. If you believe in someone you will do what they say and ask you to do. And this is faith. I gave you this analogy once before which I really like. This man played this game called Faith with his young daughter. The young daughter loved this game and always wanted to play it. The young child stood on some steps, about 2-3 steps up and he stood in front of her with his hands behind his back. And the child said “Daddy will you catch me?” and he said- “I might- the only way to find out is to jump”. And then the little girl after some hesitation jumped and he caught her! That is faith, it is not something we think or feel but what we do! It’s that action that is faith. That is believing in someone. Do you know that both the Greek and Hebrew word for “faith” and “faithfulness” are the same word? That a very important point because we need to keep faith to be saved. For instance that famous verse in Habakkuk 2:4 “.. the righteous will live by faith” really reads the righteous will not perish if they keep faith or are faithful. In fact everywhere in the Old Testament you can replace faith with faithfulness- its an ongoing process. It also brings into focus that the belief “once saved always saved” is a mistake. You may not lose your salvation but you may stop it. God will never break a covenant, but people can and do.
John 15:5-6
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
So we need to run this race to the end, to the finish line. The race is not over until it is over! We cannot give up until the race is over! We need to be faithful.
The first sign that you believe in Jesus is repentance and this too is an ongoing process. To me this is the work of faith. That’s why James say in 2:17 “… faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Repentance is the work of faith, it is the evidence of the ongoing faith in our lives. Repentance is an essential part of the New Covenant because we believe that there is forgiveness in the cleansing blood of Jesus this declares us to be Holy, free of accusation and blameless. And if we don’t repent how do we get forgiveness? Baptism is the outward sign of this repentance and so without repentance baptism is meaningless. And if you are in doubt if you should be baptised or not, remember Jesus was baptised, in obedience, and so should we. His words were “it is proper to do this to fulfil all righteousness”
And once we have done these things God confirms this covenant with us by filling us with His Holy Spirit in what we call baptism of the Holy Spirit. We are then “sealed by the Holy Spirit. And that’s another discussion.
So we need those 4 things. Faithfulness, repentance, baptism and finally the seal of baptism by the Holy Spirit.
If there is one thing to take away, it is don’t give up! Run the race to the end. And when you feel weary then do as Isaiah says- “wait upon the Lord” that your strength may be renewed, that you may fly like eagles and run and not get tired, that you may be refreshed (Is 40). He has called you by name and you are His! (Is43)