New Covenant Christianity - Restoration The Heart of God
Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law [of her husband c. In other writings Paul explains how the curses of the broken marriage covenant died with Yeshua, being nailed to the cross. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. The blood made the contract effective, operable, and binding. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people.
For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. However, the nature of the blood sacrifice was of immeasurably greater quality than that of the first covenant. Additionally, the one who would officiate the sacrifice would not be a Levite, but one of the order of Melchizedek. In this, the husband died to dissolve the old marriage but at the same time, his blood became the blood of the new covenant, and he also was the one who offered the blood on the heavenly altar.
But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight Col 1: Now free from the curse of her broken marriage covenant, Israel could actually remarry without being called an adulteress.
However, how could she be rejoined to her groom if he was in the grave? If Yeshua remained dead, then no remarriage between him and Israel could take place, despite her new freedom. Therefore, Yeshua had to not only die to free Israel, but had to also rise from the dead so that she could remarry her former husband, who was in reality a New Husband. All of the lawlessness her adultery of the first marriage was literally buried with Yeshua the Husband, Yahweh in the flesh. Now he was free to remarry his former wife without breaking his own instructions.
Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles [scattered Israel, out of covenant] in the flesh…that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise , having no hope and without God in the world But now in Christ Yeshua you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Therefore, the New Covenant is not a new dispensation where Yahweh suddenly starts operating on the basis of grace with all of humanity.
Yahweh has always been gracious and that quality of grace and mercy is the very thing that Yahweh declared about himself on Mt. Yahweh passed by before him and proclaimed: The New Covenant, rather, is not a new basis of grace, but is rather a gracious, renewed marriage covenant between Yahweh and His divorced wife who had been scattered to the nations, just as Yahweh had promised would happen:. Yahweh will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other.
There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. Does she get a new marriage covenant? Let there be no doubt, Judah most certainly deserved to be divorced because of her adulterous heart and wandering eyes which deeply hurt Yahweh Ezek 6: They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers who refused to hear My words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them; the House of Israel and the House of Judah have broken My covenant which I made with their fathers.
Furthermore, the two sister nations needed to be reunited into one nation: Yahweh declared that He would in fact make a new marriage contract with both houses:. Yahweh also promised that he would join the two houses back together as depicted in the imagery of a stick, broken in two, which becomes one again:.
The First Marriage Contract
Judah could have a new relationship with Yahweh and so too Israel could come back into fellowship with her husband. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, Eph 2: As a result their joint status as adulterers was wiped away. Furthermore, the House of Judah and the House of Israel have become one again and the wall of separation between them has been removed. The situation has now been rectified, though not in full. The covenant continued to Abraham, where we see some significant expansion of it Gen. The Abrahamic covenant continues with Isaac Gen.
Time and again Israel was reminded of this covenant Exod.
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God's truth - God's covenant - stands for all time. God did not make a mistake in the covenant and have to begin all over - we do not serve such an incompetent God. Even God's plan for Adam to fill the earth with God's image Gen 1: Jesus is the seed of Abraham Matt. Christ was not only circumcised according to the Abrahamic covenant Rom.
Further, Abraham is the father of all that believe Rom.
The Re-Newed or New Covenant?
Even the future state of glory is expressed in Abrahamic terms Matt. The Abrahamic covenant was not set aside by the Mosiac covenant Gal.
The covenant of grace is for all ages. It is everlasting Gen. It is still working in the renewed covenant: The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: So, we see one covenant expanding throughout the centuries. Like a tree that is maturing, so the covenant unfolded in time. Note the stages of a tree: A maturing tree may also be called by different names throughout its life cycle.
Likewise, the one covenant is referred to by different names to help further define its development to full maturity. The Old Covenant and the New Covenant are one. The re-newed covenant is the continuation of the everlasting covenant; the Covenant of Grace. Many have assumed since the ambiguous terms Old Covenant and New Covenant seem so drastically opposed to one another i. Nothing could be further from the truth! But a careful study of the Bible demonstrates that both are forms of administration of the "one" Covenant of Grace. Therefore, while there are differences, they are not so diametrically opposed that they should be considered direct opposites of one another.
They rather complement each other.
The New Covenant
The Old Covenant is a term used to refer to the administration of the Covenant of Grace under the Mosaic economy and the New Covenant refers to the administration of the Covenant of Grace under Christ's economy. However, there is but "one" Covenant of Grace which has been progressively revealed in these different administrations. So, the realities of New Covenant were already operating during the dispensation of the Old!
I will put my laws in their minds and I will inscribe them on their hearts. And I will be their God and they will be my people. Now what is growing obsolete and aging is about to disappear. Years ago my wife and I found ourselves in a position where we needed to care for an ailing friend. We had served as witnesses to her will, and thus we were aware of how she wanted her affairs conducted. She had given me a measure of authority over her finances, and in addition, I could assume even greater authority if circumstances dictated the need.
As her heath continued to deteriorate, it appeared that I might need to exercise additional authority. I was told that I had a copy of her will and that I should consult it. Fortunately for me, I did not have to do anything beyond what I had done up to this point in time. I suppose that some Hebrew Christians felt the same way when they began to grasp the implications of the New Covenant.
For centuries, devout Jews had been operating under the Old, Mosaic Covenant, but now they were being told by Jesus and the apostles that things had changed. In their case, they could not claim to have been uninformed that such a dramatic change was coming. The Old Testament writers had prophesied that a New Covenant was coming, one that was vastly superior to the Old. One such prophet was Jeremiah, and his prophecy is cited by the author of the Book of Hebrews in our text.
In fact, this citation of Jeremiah The New Covenant is the subject of our text in Hebrews 8 and beyond. It is yet another reason why the high priestly ministry of our Lord is vastly superior to that of the Aaronic order since the high priest must carry out the terms of the covenant under which he serves. In the ancient Near East, it was a kind of treaty by means of which rulers entered into a covenant relationship with their subjects.
There are certain similarities in style between these secular covenants and the biblical covenants, but the content is surely different. Some covenants were bilateral in that there were obligations and commitments for both sides. We see such a covenant between Abraham and Abimelech in Genesis Marriage is described as a bilateral covenant in Malachi 2: Both husband and wife make covenant promises which they are obligated to keep. God promised blessings when His people kept His covenant Deuteronomy We also find a different kind of covenant in the Bible.
It is a covenant in which God binds Himself to do certain things, but not conditioned upon the actions of others. In the case of the Abrahamic Covenant, God promised to make a great nation of Abram, and to bless his seed greatly, and thus he and his offspring would become a blessing to others.
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Thus, it was an unchangeable covenant. In this sense, the Abrahamic Covenant and the New Covenant consisted of promises. This is exactly what the author of Hebrews tells us:. But now Jesus has obtained a superior ministry, since the covenant that he mediates is also better and is enacted on better promises Hebrews 8: These promises make the New Covenant vastly superior to the Old Covenant, so much so that the New Covenant replaces the Old, making it obsolete.
The New Covenant should not be new to the student of Scripture. Not infrequently, it is the subject of Old Testament prophecy:. Yes, they will possess a double portion in their land and experience lasting joy. I will repay them because of my faithfulness; I will make a permanent covenant with them Isaiah I will bring them back to this place and allow them to live here in safety. They will want to do that for their own good and the good of the children who descend from them. I will fill their hearts and minds with respect for me so that they will never again turn away from me.
Then they will be my people, and I will be their God Ezekiel I will give them to you as daughters, but not on account of my covenant with you. It is not for your sake that I am about to act, O house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy reputation which you profaned among the nations where you went.
The nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the sovereign Lord, when I magnify myself among you in their sight. I will purify you from all your idols. I will remove the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of flesh. They will follow my regulations and carefully observe my statutes. David my servant will be prince over them forever. I will establish them, increase their numbers, and place my sanctuary among them forever.
Other than the passages we find in Hebrews, 2 there are also a number of texts in the New Testament pertaining to the New Covenant. When a covenant has been ratified, even though it is only a human contract, no one can set it aside or add anything to it. The law that came four hundred thirty years later does not cancel a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to invalidate the promise Galatians 3: One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery; this is Hagar.
Jeremiah lived during the darkest days of the nation. The northern kingdom of Israel had already been defeated and dispersed abroad by the Assyrians. The southern kingdom of Judah had not learned from the experiences of her sister, Israel. She, too, had persisted in her sins and thus the prophesied Babylonian captivity drew near.
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Already some of the Jews had been deported to Babylon. But he prophesied that after this, there was hope for restoration:.
Bible Living
Plant gardens and eat what they produce. Find wives for your sons and allow your daughters get married so that they too can have sons and daughters. Grow in number; do not dwindle away. Pray to the Lord for it. For as it prospers you will prosper. And do not pay any attention to the dreams that you are encouraging them to dream. But I did not send them. I, the Lord, affirm it! Then I will fulfill my gracious promise to you and restore you to your homeland. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.
The promises of the New Covenant are then spelled out by Jeremiah in I will be their God and they will be my people. The author of Hebrews tells us that the New Covenant is better than the Old the Mosaic Covenant , among other reasons because it contains better promises. The author chooses the words of Jeremiah We see this kind of argument all the time in advertisements we find in the media. It is time to cast them aside and get the latest and the best. While this kind of advertising is suspect, the logic is absolutely true when comparing the New Covenant with the Old.
If, indeed, the Old Covenant is flawed, then it should be replaced. As he begins to cite from Jeremiah 31, the author begins by informing us that the flaws of the Old are the reason why God declared a New Covenant with better promises. Now what is the nature of these flaws? Here we are dealing with a matter that has divided the scholars. We will not delve into the technicalities, but will only point out the differences in the way verse 8 is translated:. But finding fault with His people , He says: Both options are viable, and it seems to me that both are valid. If there was nothing wrong with the Old Covenant, then why did it need to be replaced?
Is the fault only to be found here? As the argument develops in Romans 7, we find that while the law is good, and its requirements are righteous, the problem is with sin and with the weakness of our flesh. Thus, we agree with the law in what it requires, but we nevertheless fail to obey its commands. We agree with what the Law forbids, but we do these things anyway. And so we find that the fault lies with sinful men on the one hand, and with a covenant that cannot overcome or permanently remove sin and its consequences on the other.
More than this, since the northern kingdom of Israel had been carried off and dispersed by the Assyrians, 6 this would be no small miracle. Of necessity, the New Covenant would not be like the Old Covenant that was flawed. This covenant was broken by the Israelites from the very beginning, something that the author of Hebrews pointed out in chapters 3 and 4.
Because His people disregarded God and His covenant with them, God had no regard for them. There was no hope for Israel under the Mosaic Covenant. And I will be their God and they will be my people Hebrews 8: Which days might these be? I believe the answer is to be found in Jeremiah Why do I see every man With his hands on his loins, as a woman in childbirth?
And why have all faces turned pale? The New Covenant is not merely a set of external commands and standards. The New Covenant produces a change of heart. This is the circumcision of heart God promised in Deuteronomy It is the work of the Holy Spirit, a work about which Ezekiel has much more to say.
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The New Covenant is also a subject dear to the heart of the Apostle Paul. How clear is the contrast he makes between the Old Covenant and the New:. The work of the Holy Spirit is internal, changing our hearts from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. He creates in us a love for God and a desire to obey His commands.