Jesus, The New Testament
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when 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 lead them out of the land of Egypt…” (Jer.31:31,32). The word “covenant” simply means agreement. God had many covenants with men down through the ages. For example, God established a covenant with Noah and his posterity that He would never again destroy the earth with a global flood. With Abraham God established the covenant of circumcision. With Abraham’s descendants through Isaac and Jacob He established a covenant that is often referred to as “The Law of Moses”. It is to these people that Jeremiah reveals that there is coming a time in which God will establish “a new covenant”. Just what is this new covenant? First, its nature would not be like the covenant God gave to Israel through Moses – “…not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers…” The nature of God’s first covenant with Israel was that of a written code of law. Paul, in contrasting the new covenant with the one Israel first received, used the expression – “not of the letter but of the Spirit”. Just what did the apostle mean by this expression? The answer is obvious. Whereas the first covenant was a written legal code by which man justified himself though the efforts of his flesh in obeying law, the new covenant is not. In speaking of the old covenant, Paul told the Corinthian saints that “the letter kills”. Under a system of law man is condemned if he breaks any command. But under the new covenant man is not condemned, but justified. In further describing the new covenant God had Jeremiah to write, “I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more” (Jer.31:34). So the new covenant is God forgiving men through Jesus. Another prophet, Isaiah, described Jesus as the new covenant – “I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness” (Isa.42:6,7). Let us thank God for His new covenant.