Creation to Christ: Reading 32 – September 8, 2016 – Jeremiah 31:31-40 A New Covenant

Today’s Readings

Context 

The issue of the covenants is a difficult one - it is wrapped up in a person's view of end times and the place of Israel and all sorts of other momentous theological concepts. Jeremiah 31` is undoubtedly a turning point in the Scripture, as God looks at all of his covenants with Israel and says, "I'm going to do something new."

I interpret this passage as having millennial focus, being ultimately fulfilled in that 1000 years reign of Christ, but also having a secondary focus in the New Testament's "new covenant in Christ's blood." The two are nearly identical in shape and purpose, even though one is with the church and the other is with Israel. Others, with different millennial views, bring the purposes of God in Israel and church together and would see them as one thing.

Either way, the meaning of the covenant is pretty much the same. It is a whole new way of God relating to man. The reliance on a written code is gone; no more is an external set of laws the rule of the day. But this is a new covenant written in the heart by the Spirit of God. Man failed in keeping the law so God worked another way.

Note: Testament and Covenant were synonymous in days gone by. The Bible's two main sections - Old Testament and New Testament - actually refer to the Old Covenant (Mosaic) and the New Covenant in Christ. 

Devotional 

The old covenant was a miserable failure, not because God failed or the law failed, but because humanity failed - Israel failed. When God said "no other gods" Israel worshiped other gods anyway. God prohibited building images but Israel constructed and honored idols regularly. They broke the two great laws (love God; love your neighbor), they shattered the Ten Commandments, and they ignored the rest of God's laws - ceremonial, sacrificial, cleanliness, and every other sort. The law did not fail but Israel did. And we have continued to walk in the ways of the people of God, turning aside into sin.

So God constructed another way, a new covenant that was distinctly different from the old. No longer did God present Israel a set of tablets with written laws, but he would give them a law written in their hearts by God's Spirit. This was a whole new way of life.

In Jeremiah 31, God introduced this new covenant and gave at least four reasons why it is superior to the old covenant.

1. The new covenant is written on our hearts by the Spirit and is not written on tablets of stone (verse 33). It is a work of God within hearts. The best the tablets of stone could do is produce Pharisees who painted the outside white but remained death and decay on the inside. So God sent his Spirit, immersed believers in the Spirit, and empowered us to walk in the righteous requirements of the law. 

2.The new covenant is for all people, not just a few (verse 34). Under the Old Testament, God spoke through prophets, led through kings and judges, and worship required priests to mediate and make sacrifices. But in the new covenant, Jesus is our everything. He has made the sacrifice and is our Great High Priest - no other priest is necessary and each of us can go directly to God. The Spirit has given us the word of God and illumines it for us. He leads each of us and guides us. The church still needs leaders called of God, but we do not need mediators - Christ is the only one.

3. The new covenant brings forgiveness for sins (verse 34). All the old covenant could bring is condemnation because of our failure to keep it. But through his blood, Jesus gave the once-for-all sacrifice that washed away our sins and removed our separation from God. The new covenant heals and forgives where the old covenant only condemns.

4.The new covenant restores and renews. (verse 38). This world is not what God created it to be, but our sins marred the image of God in us and brought a curse on the world - with it's many horrible effects. We live in a broken world, but the new covenant deals a death blow to sin so that God can begin to reverse the curse and restore the world to what he intended it to be.

The old covenant was good and righteous, but it failed because of man's sin. The new covenant, effected in Christ's blood, did what it could not. It is a great blessing to live under the new covenant.

Thank  you, Father, for the new covenant of grace and all its blessings. You have written in my heart the law I could not keep and have given me forgiveness and rightoeusness through Christ. 

Think and Pray

Are you living in the blessings of the new covenant, or still living an Ood covenant, legalistic kind of life?