New Covenant

This week in my 2 Corinthians class our assignment was to study the old covenant, the new covenant in the Old Testament, and what the promises of the new covenant are. It was a very eye opening study to me, and is just another building block in my heart portraying the significance of the gospel, and my freedom in Christ (something God seems to be unfolding in my heart this semester.)

The old covenant was a series of promises and laws given to the Israelites from God in the OT. The old covenant was based upon retribution theology, meaning, if the Israelites kept the commands of the Lord and lived in a way pleasing to Him, they would prosper and find blessings, but if they did not they would be cursed. Seen in the lives of the Israelites, one can track their obedience and disobedience to God quite clearly by watching for the success and blessings of the people, or finding the times where they are cursed and receive the wrath of God.

In the old covenant, the Israelites were constantly subject to rituals and sacrifice to make atonement for both their daily sins and their disobedience to the covenant of God. These sacrifices were designed to save them from their ever deserved wrath of God. These sacrifices however were not enough, and never fully cleansed them of their iniquities. Though they would live to attain righteousness, their sin would enslave them and render them incapable.

The failure of humanity to live righteously in the old covenant through the law showed the desperate need of the people for an act of salvation that would rescue them from their sinful nature and tendencies to break the law, separating them from God.

The whispers of a new covenant were strewn throughout the old testament however, asprophets would speak of a time when God would claim the hearts of his people to be his own, set them free from their burden of sin, and enslave them to righteousness. The prophets spoke of a glorious indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of those that were to receive this covenant, a gift through which God would mark his children, and make Himself truly known to His beloved.


Jeremiah 31:31-38 sheds a brilliant light on the beautiful details of this new covenant:

31 "Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.

33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: 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. 34And 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."

35Thus says the LORD,who gives the sun for light by day
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
the LORD of hosts is his name:

36 "If this fixed order departs
from before me, declares the LORD,
then shall the offspring of Israel cease
from being a nation before me forever."

37Thus says the LORD:"If the heavens above can be measured,
and the foundations of the earth below can be explored,
then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel
for all that they have done, declares the LORD."

38 "Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when the city shall be rebuilt for the LORD from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. 39 And the measuring line shall go out farther, straight to the hill Gareb, and shall then turn to Goah. 40 The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes, and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the LORD. It shall not be uprooted or overthrown anymore forever."


This covenant that was to be established would be impossible to break, and those that God claimed as his own would be marked by an immovable force that would allow for nothing to separate God from his beloved people. NOTHING!

not even sin

For he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned- every one- to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.


Because he poured out his soul to death
and was numbered with the transgressors;
yet he bore the sin of many,
and makes intercession for the transgressors.
(Isaiah 53:5-6, 12b)



How then are we to live? Do we not realize that we now live in the precious new covenant for which all of Israel longed? In-dwelt with the Holy Spirit, we are free from sin. We are no longer strangers who say to one another, " know God," for we shall truly know God.

This is almost impossible for my heart to grasp.

How often do I live in the guilt of my sin,
when its burden I not longer bear?

How often have I been deceived and held back by the nature of my humanity,
when it is no longer something I am chained to ?

How often have I separated myself from God,
when he has drawn me near to him?

How often have I thought my God not enough,
when he has said that he is sufficient ?

How often have I thought my sin too much,
believing myself forever tainted by that which I have already received forgiveness?

HOW OFTEN ARE WE HELD BACK BY SATAN
led to believe that we have not been freed to dance forward with God.


Everything we think we must do, everything we feel we must justify, and every law we feel we must fulfill in order for God to love us, everything we need....

God has made a way for everything we needed in order to stand before him.


Do you understand your freedom?
That God would reach out and grant you this covenant that even he cannot break..
That there is nothing more you can do to earn it, attain it, enlarge it, diminish it, nothing.



it has been done.