Summary
The New Covenant
There is a vivid English idiom—"before the ink was dry"—that captures what happened with God's first great covenant with Israel. An agreement was struck, and almost immediately one party broke it. That picture helps frame the promise of Jeremiah 31:31-34, where the Lord declares, "The days are surely coming…when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah."
A covenant is essentially a contract, and Scripture shows us two kinds. A two-way covenant works like financing a car: something is given, but obligations must be met in return, or the gift is forfeit. A one-way covenant works like a will: a benefactor leaves a bequest, and the recipients do nothing to earn it—they simply receive what has been promised. Both kinds appear in Scripture, and the difference between them is the difference between the old covenant and the new.
At Mount Sinai, God established a two-way covenant. He declared Himself God and set forth His expectations: obedience to His commandments, with blessings attached to faithfulness Deuteronomy 28:1. The covenant itself was not flawed—it was holy and good. The problem lay with the people. Before the ink was dry, while Moses was still on the mountain receiving the law, Israel was already at the foot of Sinai fashioning a golden calf and calling it their god Exodus 32:1-6. The Sinai covenant revealed sin, but it could not remove sin. It commanded obedience, but it could not empower obedience. It was preparatory—pointing forward to something greater.
That something greater is the new covenant, born through the blood of Jesus Christ. Where Sinai was two-way, the new covenant is one-way. Christ offered "for all time a single sacrifice for sins" Hebrews 10:11-18, and in Him God says, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." Our sin is placed on Christ; He bears the wrath of God in our place; the tomb is empty. This covenant actually does what the old one could not: it removes sin, and by the indwelling Holy Spirit it empowers the obedience God desires. It is sealed to each believer in the waters of Baptism, where God joins His Word to water and washes us into His family with forgiveness, life, and faith.
The constant temptation, even for Christians, is to slide back into dealing with God on the terms of the law. We hear it in familiar phrases: "I must have done something good to deserve this blessing." "God helps those who help themselves." "If only I had enough faith, or prayed hard enough, God would come through." "Lord, after all I've done for You, why this suffering?" Each of these tries to leverage the law to manage God—and each puts the soul back in bondage. But the law was never given to save. The Ten Commandments came long after the fall; God never said, "Keep these perfectly and earn your way to heaven." As Paul writes, "We know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ" Galatians 2:16.
The good news of the New Covenant is that it does not depend on us. God simply says: this has been done for you through the cross and the empty tomb; look what you received in your Baptism; I have claimed you, washed you, and you are Mine, and I am not letting go. The new covenant is God's grasp upon us. The ink is dry.
Video citations
- "New Covenant" (4-18-21) — What you open your Bibles, please, with me today for our study to Jeremiah the 31st chapter. Jeremiah chapter 31 for our study today. Idioms. Idioms. There are a grouping of words that if you take…