The New Covenant

Both Jesus and Paul alluded to a New Covenant. They were citing a passage in the prophecy of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NIV)
“The time is coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

There are several things that we need to notice about this new covenant that Jeremiah introduces. First, it is a future event from the perspective of the prophet. He uses phrases like, “The time is coming” and “After that time.”

Second, and perhaps most importantly, this covenant was to be made with “the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” It is not made with all nations and peoples, but only with Israel. This fact comes as a shock to some.

This new covenant seems to be a replacement for the covenant made at Sinai with their forefathers, also a covenant exclusively for Israel. Because they were unable to keep the earlier covenant, which involved obeying God’s law (Torah), God graciously made plans to offer a replacement covenant.

How will this new covenant differ from the old one? The main difference seems to be that the Torah will be internalized. It will no longer be external commands that people have to obey with their own strength and willpower. There will be something inside God’s people that will cause them to want to follow God’s laws, and to follow them naturally. How does this work? The prophet Ezekiel gives us some information in a parallel passage.

Ezekiel 36:24-28
For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

God promises to put a new heart into his people, a heart of flesh, not of stone. In connection with this, God promises to put his Spirit within the hearts of his people in order to move them to follow his laws. This is the internal force that enables people to keep God’s laws, the Holy Spirit of God.

The apostle Paul seems to be referring to this ministry of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8.

Romans 8:3-9
For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

In this passage it is clearly the Spirit of God who is enabling people to live in a way that is pleasing to God, which the sinful nature cannot do. This results in submitting to God’s law (v. 7) and meeting the righteous requirements of the law (v. 4).

This comes as a shock to many, who assume that the law has been abolished, an idea that both Jesus (Mt. 5:17-18) and Paul (Rom. 3:31) strongly oppose. But we’ll discuss this in much more depth in future posts.

If this new covenant is only for the house of Israel, where does that leave Gentiles who believe in Jesus? Are they strangers to the covenant? Paul does describe them that way in Ephesians 2:11-12. But he explains that a mystery has been revealed to him that was not previously known.

Ephesians 3:6
This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

In Romans 11 he explains this in more depth, and uses the metaphor of Israel as an olive tree. Gentile believers are wild olive branches that are grafted into the tree, and partake of the nourishing sap.

This is consistent with Paul’s statement in Ephesians 2:19 that believing Gentiles are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household. Here the metaphor is a building rather than a tree. But the point is the same; believing Gentiles are joined with Israel to become the greater people of God, the commonwealth of Israel.

So the new covenant, although made with Israel alone, can also include Gentiles who believe in the Messiah and are grafted into the olive tree. It’s like a wedding invitation being sent to “Israel and Guest”. We Gentiles are the guest, but it’s only in company with Israel that we are accepted. Praise God for His grace!