The New Covenant

The high point in the book of Jeremiah is when God announces His desire for a “new” covenant with His people.

“Behold, days are coming,” declares YEHOVAH, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke…this is the covenant which I will make…I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people….I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

The earlier covenant that God made with His people was a conditional covenant. Receiving the blessings of the covenant was conditioned by their observing the requirements of the covenant. Simply stated, there were blessings for obeying God’s laws and punishments for disobeying it.

“See, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil; in that I command you today to love YEHOVAH your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that…God may bless you… But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish (Deuteronomy 30:15-18).

The prophet Jeremiah’s message to the people was that God’s judgement for their sins was about to occur. They are going into exile in Babylon for 70 years. Their relationship with God suffered because of their sin. It needed to be repaired, renewed and restored.

At the same time Jeremiah announces the imminent judgement, he also gives a message of regathering and restoration. Their exile was not going to be permanent. God had plans for them to return and prosper.

The “new” covenant was central to their restoration. The new covenant did not replace the original covenant, it enhances it. The root meaning of the Hebrew word for new is chadash. Meaning “to renew, repair, restore.”

God promised to restore the exiled people back to the land, to repair the divided nation and to renew his relationship with them.

The people thought the old covenant was about behavior – keeping the moral, civil and ceremonial law. The law was never about grudging adherence to commandments. Obedience was not about meriting salvation. It was about loving God. The love of God was to be the motivation for obedience.

The new covenant internalizes obedience to God – writing His law on their hearts. When we internalize the law, obedience spring forth from our love for God. “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and live” (Proverbs 4:4)

The new covenant was designed by God, mediated by Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit. We will explore each aspect of our covenant relationship with God.