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The New Covenant
"Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and
with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their
fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of
Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a lord over them, saith the
Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel;
After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and
written in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And
they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother,
saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto
the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I
will remember their sin no more" (Jer. 31:30-33).
This passage was fulfilled in the
covenant Jesus mediated and established beginning with His death on the cross
(Heb. 8:10; 12:24).
New Not Old!
The new covenant would not be
"according to the covenant" that God made with Israel at Mount Zion
through the mediatorship of Moses. This is a significant point to note because
the anti-missionary insists that the new covenant of Jeremiah is the exact same
covenant given at Sinai: "The term 'new covenant' would be meaningless
unless what Jeremiah meant by it was the renewing of the old covenant, which
will thereby regain its full original vigor" (Sigal, p. 72).
Sigal insists that based on Psalm
111:7-8 and Isaiah 40:8, which speak of God's Word standing forever, we can know
Jeremiah was not speaking a new covenant which was to supersede the old one. (We
refer the reader to chapter 17 where we show how the word "forever"
can mean "age lasting.") What the anti-missionary fails to do is
explain how the old covenant (Exodus 19:5) and new covenant (Jer. 31:31) could
be one and the same, yet the new is said to not be "according to the"
old. There are three aspects of this "new" covenant which differ from
the Mosaic covenant. These we will now consider:
(1) God's laws were to be written in the hearts and minds of
the people (v.33).
Since, ideally, God's laws were
to reside in the hearts of the old covenant saints, what could Jeremiah possibly
mean by this? We answer that the Holy Spirit was not given to all of the Old
Covenant saints. In the New Covenant, however, every believer "from the
least to the greatest" receives the Holy Spirit. (See Isa. 59:21; Ezk.
39:29; John 7:39.) The Spirit of God is what binds the Word of God in our
hearts.
(2) No longer would a man need to
teach his brother or neighbor about the Lord for all would know the Lord
(v.34a).
In his attempt to discount the
application of this passage to Christians, Levine helps us explain the true
meaning of the passage. Levine states:
If the birth of the Christian
religion really did introduce the new covenant, then there should no longer be
any need for anyone to teach the word of God, 'for they shall know Me.' Since,
as everyone with eyes can see, the whole world does not yet recognize God, and
the Christians are still trying to teach religion to the world, as are others,
it is quite clear that the verse, 'they shall teach no more every man, saying,
Know the Lord' does not yet apply. In other words, the new covenant has not yet
taken place (Levine, p. 15).
Levine may not be cognizant of
the fact that in the coming kingdom of Messiah, the time when he believes
Jeremiah 31 will be fulfilled, people will still be learning about the Lord:
And many peoples shall go and
say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the
God of Jacob; and he will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in his
paths...(Isaiah 2:3a.).
See also Zechariah 8:23 when
Gentiles come to learn from the Jews in the Kingdom: "We will go with you:
for we have heard that God is with you. Now that Levine's interpretation can be
dismissed as untenable, we shall consider the most plausible explanation. In the
Old Covenant dispensation, a Jew was born into the kingdom. Thus, one could have
an entire nation of a few million people, many of whom never made a sincere
commitment to God. This failure could be due to the spiritual neglect by the
parents. Thus an Israelite would often have occasion to ask his neighbor or
brother whether they really knew the Lord. In sharp contrast, to be a saint
under the New Covenant one had to be an adult "who obeyed from heart"
the gospel (Rom. 6:17). He has to be old enough to believe and repent of his
sins before he can be baptized into a covenant relationship with God. By the
very nature of this arrangement, everyone in the spiritual kingdom (the church)
of Jesus would "know the Lord" from the "least to the
greatest."
(3) Their sins would be
remembered no more (v.34b).
We learn from Isa. 49 that the
same Messiah who was to "raise up the tribes of Jacob," "restore
the preserved of Israel" and be a "light to the nations" was also
to be a "covenant of the people" (Isa. 49:6,8). This is fulfilled in
"Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant...a better covenant, which was
established on better promises" (Heb. 12:24; 8:6). How is this covenant
better? The first covenant was dedicated by the blood of animals:
For when Moses had spoken every
precept to the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and
goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself
and the people saying, 'This is the blood of the covenant which God has
commanded you. Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all
the vessels of the ministry (Heb. 9:19-21).
The New Covenant was dedicated by
the blood of Jesus. Jesus on the eve of His death said: "This is My blood
of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins"
(Matt. 26:28).
The blood of the Old Covenant was
only a temporary appeasement for God's anger. This is seen by the fact that
these sacrifices had to be repeated continually. But the blood of the New
Covenant made a permanent atonement:
For by one offering [Jesus] has
perfected forever those who are being sanctified. But the Holy Spirit also
witnesses to us; for after He has said before, 'This is the covenant that I will
make with them after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws into their
hearts, and in their minds I will write them,' then He adds, 'Their sins and
their lawless deeds I will remember no more.' Now where there is remission of
these, there is no longer an offering for sin. Therefore, brethren, having
boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way
which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh; and having a
High priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart...(Heb.
10:14-22).