The New Covenant

How many of you like movies? Movies can be a great form of entertainment as we seek to watch a story play out before us on the big screen. When it comes to movies, you have originals and sequels. A sequel can be a tricky thing. Sometimes a sequel has little to do with the original movie. Take Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, for example. It had little do to with the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark. If you decided to watch the second movie in The Hobbit Trilogy without watching the first, you would miss out on some key points.

Some feel that it is made up of two parts that do not have much to do with one another when it comes to the Bible. If you were to examine the Bible, you would see an Old Testament and a New Testament. The truth is that these two testaments make up one complete story. Without one, you would not fully understand the other. 

We have been going through a sermon series called Promises, where we have looked at different covenants that the LORD made with humanity at various points. It is easy to think that these are stand-alone events that only pertained to those at the moment, but we said last week that each of these covenants fit together like puzzle pieces and pointed to something big that the LORD was doing. The covenants that the LORD made with Noah, Abraham, the Israelites, and King David pointed to what we will talk about today: the new covenant.

What is the New Covenant?

When we say “the new covenant,” it is important that we are on the same page about what we are talking about. Too often, misunderstandings happen because terms are not clearly defined. The New Covenant is the promise that the LORD makes with humanity that He will forgive sin and restore fellowship with those whose hearts are turned towards Him. 

When sin came into humanity in the Garden of Eden, there was a break in the fellowship between people and the LORD. This break in fellowship results in eternal separation from the LORD and His goodness. Because we are the ones who sin, we can do nothing ourselves to make this right. Thankfully, the LORD chose to step in and make a way for redemption and restoration to take place. This way is the New Covenant.

The New Covenant Has Always Been The Plan

As I said earlier, we cannot separate the covenants of the Old Testament from the New Covenant explained throughout the New Testament. If you were to take the covenants that we’ve looked at over the past couple of weeks, along with the messages that God gave to many of the prophets in the Old Testament, you would see that this New Covenant has been the LORD’s plan from the beginning. 

The Old Covenant that the LORD established with His people required obedience to what we know as the Mosaic Law. Because the wages of sin is death, the Law required that Israel perform daily sacrifices to atone for sin. In one of his last addresses to the people of Israel, Moses looked forward to a time when Israel would be given “a heart to understand.”

The LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love him with all your heart and all your soul so that you will live.

Deuteronomy 30:6 CSB

This new heart work that the LORD would do within people is part of this New Covenant. It is that the LORD will give a new heart to anyone who turns to Him by faith. This new heart will be one that would allow the person to fully love the LORD and follow Him with everything that they are. 

Jeremiah also spoke about the New Covenant. 

“Look, the days are coming” — this is the LORD’s declaration — “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt — my covenant that they broke even though I am their master” — the LORD’s declaration. “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days” — the LORD’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them” — this is the LORD’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.”

Jeremiah 31:31-33 CSB

We can see that Jesus Christ came to earth to fulfill the Law of Moses perfectly and establish the New Covenant between the LORD and his people. The Old Covenant was written on stone tablets, but this New Covenant would be written on people’s hearts. Luke 22:20 shows us how Jesus would initiate this New Covenant at the Lord’s Supper.

In the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”

Luke 22:20 CSB

At that moment, Jesus had not gone to the cross, but He was on His way. Jesus knew what was about to happen. He knew that He would go to the cross and take on Himself the sins of the entire human race and pay for them with His blood. The New Covenant would be the final covenant between the LORD and humanity. 

One other prophet spoke about the New Covenant in the Old Testament. His name was Ezekiel. 

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances. 

Ezekiel 36:26-27 CSB

We can see that this New Covenant would have some significant aspects: a new heart, a new spirit, the Holy Spirit living within us, and true holiness. These things could never come to a person through the Old Covenant. 

For no one will be justified in his sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law. But now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been revealed, attested by the Law and the Prophets. The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented him as an atoning sacrifice in his blood, received through faith, to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his restraint God passed over the sins previously committed. God presented him to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so that he would be righteous and declare righteous the one who has faith in Jesus. 

Romans 3:20-27 CSB

Jesus is Our Mediator

As we examine this New Covenant, it centers on Jesus and His work on our behalf. We are no longer under the Law but under grace. We are not left to keep the Law of God perfectly because there is no way that we can do that. Jesus can, however. More importantly, Jesus did. 

The Old Covenant has served its purpose in showing us what God desires and that we cannot do it ourselves. The Old Covenant ultimately pointed us to the New Covenant that Jesus Christ instituted. Under this New Covenant, we are given the opportunity to receive the free gift of salvation. We do so by agreeing with what the LORD has said about our sin (confessing it), trusting in what Jesus did for us on the cross and by rising from the grave, and following Him as Lord. As we do that, we experience this New Covenant and can live life as it was meant to be.