In lieu of both Israelite and Christian failure to keep the first covenant God made with people, that is, the commandments that God gave to Moses, I rejoice all the more in the new and better covenant that God made with us in His Son Jesus Christ.
The new covenant involves one Lamb who made one sacrifice and through faith in Him, all our sins are forgiven.
The new covenant involves the Law written in our hearts by the indwelling and abiding Holy Spirit.
The New Covenant focuses on the blood of Jesus as our blessed assurance of God’s forgiveness.
On the night that He was betrayed, Jesus, “took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.’” [1]
The new covenant is about being forgiven, accepted, approved and adopted by God in His family via faith in His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Lamb who took away the sin of the world. [2]
Jesus is also our High Priest. He is the head of Messianic Israel and of Christianity. He is the final word on what is right and wrong, and what is holy and what is unholy. No other person has the right to negate or altar what He teaches us in His Word. He is alive! He is the Chief Shepherd! All of us who speak and act on the Word of God need to be in an interactive relationship with God’s High Priest, His Son, Jesus Christ, by His indwelling Holy Spirit.
Our High Priest “is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.” [3]
The literal meaning of tabernacle in the original language is a dwelling place.
The new covenant involves our Lord Jesus making tabernacles of those who believe in Him. The Holy Spirit fills and abides in us who believe in Christ.
Jesus Christ is the “Mediator of a better covenant” “established on better promises” than the one that God made with Moses. [4]
Our Lord Jesus fulfilled the promise God made to Israel in the days of Jeremiah. “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 when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord.” [5]
“The covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” [6]
We “know the Lord” because He has given us His Holy Spirit, and His Spirit helps us to understand God and to understand God’s Word.
The Holy Spirit helps us to pray. He helps us to communicate back and forth with God. [7]
“As it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.” [8]
So, each of us who have entered the new covenant given to us by Christ have left behind trying to relate with God on a failed intellectual level only. We rely Christ’s blood for cleansing of our sin and on His Spirit to relate with God in a personal way.
This is the new covenant of Christ which makes our of us a new people that serve God in amazing ways.
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” [9]
[1] Matthew 26:27-28
[2] John 1:29
[3] Hebrews 8:1-2
[4] Hebrews 8:6
[5] Hebrews 8:8-9
[6] Hebrews 8:10-12; Jeremiah 31:31-34
[7] Romans 8:26; 8:14
[8] 1 Corinthians 2:9-10
[9] 2 Corinthians 5:17
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