Bible Study - Old Covenant and New Covenant

God made a promise already in Genesis 3:15, after the fall into sin, that an Offspring of Eve would eventually defeat the power of Satan. (We know, of course, that that Offspring was Jesus.) This promise was already connected to a particular person, Abram (Abraham), and his descendants in Genesis 12:1-3. The promise included the fact that all families of the earth would eventually be blessed through one of his descendants. (Again, that descendant was Jesus.) Though he struggled, Abram believed in the Lord and His promises, and he was counted as a righteous man by faith (Genesis 15:6).

God renewed this promise with a “covenant” with Abram in Genesis 15:7-19. There is a ceremony described that seems strange to us but familiar to people in Abram’s day. Some animals were cut in half. Then, normally, the parties in a covenant, an agreement, would both walk between the pieces of the animals to show their willingness to keep this covenant. Some say that they were both indicating that they deserved to be killed like those animals if they did not keep their part of the agreement.

In this case, though, Abram did not walk between the pieces. Only a smoking pot and a flaming torch went between the pieces. Smoke and fire were often symbols of God Himself being with His people, in the Scriptures, especially in the Old Testament. God was indicating that He would keep His promise of a descendant as a blessing for all nations, even if Abram’s descendants broke their covenant with God. (Abram’s descendants did shatter the Old Covenant by their sins and especially by their unbelief in the true God, as we will hear. And just as God promised, as He went between the pieces of animals Himself, His own Son would die in payment for the sins of God’s people.)

In Genesis 17, God renewed His promise again and changed Abram’s name to Abraham, “the father of a multitude of nations.” The line of promise and the promised descendant would run through Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Jacob’s twelve sons, the twelve tribes of Israel, and eventually through the tribe of Judah, including David and his descendants from Judah. There was a focus on the land of Israel, where these descendants would eventually live, and the nation of Israel, and God’s renewed covenant with them, when he raised Moses to lead them out of slavery in Egypt and brought them to this promised land. It was God’s doing for the sake of His people and His future promises.

Over time, God would call all males to be circumcised and gave His commandments and many other rules and regulations to this Jewish nation. But He reminded them that He had acted first, on their behalf, in love for them. “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” In gratitude to Him, His people were to follow His will and especially follow only Him as the one true God. God gave them many other prophets and the Old Testament Scriptures to lead and guide them, as well.

Sadly, the Old Testament is a story of sin and rebellion against God, even by His own chosen people through whom He would work out His plan for all nations. Some were faithful to Him, but many were not. The one nation split into two, and eventually, many of the people of both nations were carried into captivity in other lands. Only a “remnant” of the people returned to Israel over time. It was during these unsettled times that God gave the promise through the prophet Jeremiah of a whole New Covenant, in Jeremiah 31:31-34. That was the reading we had just a few weeks ago and prompted me to prepare this study. I am greatly simplifying what I am saying. There was continuity between the Old Covenant and the New, but the New Covenant would not be like the Old.

The problem with the Old Covenant was that the people kept breaking it, “though I was their husband, declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 31:32). God uses the picture image of a marriage. God was a faithful husband to His people, but they had been like an unfaithful wife. They kept cheating on Him and going after false gods. That led to breaking all the other commandments and the overall will of God, too.

Central to the New Covenant would be the “forgiveness of sins” and “a new heart” and “renewed knowing of God.” Old Testament prophets had also predicted this and the coming of a “suffering Savior” for the sake of His people and all the people of the world. (See Ezekiel 11:19: “one heart and a new spirit… I will remove the heart of stone … and give them a heart of flesh.” See Ezekiel 36:25-27, too, and Isaiah 53.)

The birth of Jesus Christ was the beginning of that New Covenant. See Luke 1:30-33. His whole life and ministry and suffering and death brought that forgiveness and new life to us and, as promised, to all nations and peoples in the world. He died for all (1 Timothy 2:6), and His blessings are now available to all. (Of course, people can reject Him and His gift of eternal life, which was earned for them, and still be lost.) See His Words, as He gave the Lord’s Supper to us in Luke 22:20: “This cup that is poured out for you is the New Covenant in My Blood.” Soon after, He would make the ultimate sacrifice for us on the cross. Paul and other New Testament leaders are now “ministers of a New Covenant,” which can only be seen “through Christ” (2 Corinthians 3:4-6, 12-17).

The best description of the contrast between the Old Covenant and the New is found in the Book of Hebrews. “Jesus is the Guarantor of a better covenant” because He is risen from the dead and is our High Priest and “continues forever” (Hebrews 7:21-25). The priests of the Old Covenant were temporary and were sinners themselves, in contrast with Jesus, who was perfect and “the Source of eternal salvation” for all who trust in and seek to obey Him (Hebrews 5:1-10). See especially Hebrews 8:6-13. The New Covenant is “better, enacted by Christ on better promises,” fulfilled by Him and His perfect, once-for-all sacrifice on the cross (Hebrews 9:11-15, 25-26). The whole passage from Jeremiah 31:31-34 is then quoted in Hebrews 8:8-12. Then we hear, “In speaking of a New Covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13).

This is very important because some say that we still have two different covenants by which we can be saved. Christians are still saved through Christ, while, in this view, Jews can follow the Old Covenant and still be saved through it, apart from faith in Christ. That part about Jews is clearly wrong, according to the New Testament. Jesus says that He is the Way, and no one can be saved apart from Him (John 14:6). Peter preached that “there is salvation in no one else” but Jesus (Acts 4:12).

Besides this, there is no way that Jewish people can do all the expected things without a temple in Jerusalem, as a place for all the expected rituals, etc. The temple was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans and has never been rebuilt. See also the contrast in Hebrews 12:18-24 between the Old Testament Mount Sinai and the giving of the Law and the New Testament Mount Zion and the Heavenly Jerusalem promised to us through Jesus, “the mediator of the New Covenant and His sprinkled blood” and the Good Word of hope and forgiveness He brings us (Hebrews 12:24).

We do not have to be concerned, either, about groups like the Seventh Day Adventists, who try to put us back under Old Testament Law, saying that, even as followers of Christ, we must worship on Saturday and do no work that day, and follow other dietary rules and rituals if we really want to be saved. We also do not have to worry about cultic groups like the United Church of God, which insists that we must follow all the Old Testament festivals and stop celebrating Christmas and Easter, etc., if we really want to be acceptable to God.

We have confidence for our eternal future in Christ alone. We do not have to worry about whether we have kept all of God’s Old Testament laws well enough. We read in Hebrews 9:26, “As it is, He (Jesus) has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once" (no worry about reincarnation or any of those non-Christian ideas), "and after that comes the judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for Him.”

We have the blessing of Hebrews 13:20-21 as our own, too. “Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal (New) Covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever." Amen.