The New Covenant

The new covenant promises that God will work within us, shaping our hearts, forgiving our sins, and drawing us into a true relationship with Him.

By Ted Sleeper

Read Time: 9 minutes

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 that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. (Jeremiah 31:31-32).¹

What is the meaning of a covenant? Most readers would understand that a covenant is an agreement between two parties that involves mutual promises.

In the Old Testament, we read of the first covenant God made with His people. This idea was embodied in the Law of Moses.

Unfortunately, as Jeremiah wrote, God’s people broke that covenant despite all God’s care for them in fulfilling His part of it. Paul put his finger on the reason they failed:

The problem was that they sought to do what they thought was right, not what God wanted. In marking out a path that went their own way, they completely abandoned God’s way. God wanted His laws and ways to be in their hearts, guiding their footsteps.

To this end, God speaks of a new covenant He will make with His people. Instead of asking His people to walk according to His laws, He promises something better: He will work through their experiences and circumstances to inscribe His way of life in their minds! He promises to forgive and put away from them the times they may falter or fail in this process.

The foundation, though, of this covenant is their willingness to trust God’s work in their lives. They are not asked to grit their teeth to obey God as under the first covenant; instead, God wants and needs their unwavering trust in His work in the day-to-day circumstances of their lives. God will succeed where they failed completely in working out their own righteousness.

This covenant may sound like one based on an incredible promise, but why should I care about this new covenant?—I’m not Jewish. Consider what Jesus said to his disciples:

Jesus’s sacrifice was going to initiate this new covenant for his followers! As Gentiles, we, too, have been invited into this covenant if we become followers of Jesus. How do we know this? Consider how Jeremiah 31 is quoted in Hebrews 8:

So, there is a good reason for us to be personally interested in what is promised in the new covenant, because it contains promises God has made to us personally if we are baptized into Christ.

There are four parts to this covenant. Let’s look at each one.

Making a Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-32)

Through Moses, under the old covenant, God entered into a special relationship with His people. They committed themselves to a life of faithfulness to God and then confirmed this commitment through a special sacrifice.

The new covenant is similar: it was also established through a special sacrifice, the death of Jesus Christ. And this new covenant also requires confirmation of our commitment to God before we can participate in it. How do we confirm our commitment to obey God? By our baptism into Christ.

This is the reason why baptism is not just something one does to “join” a church. Our belief in the gospel, followed by baptism, is what we must do to enter into this new covenant with God. If the true gospel has not been believed and received into our consciences to bring us to baptism, then any dipping in water is meaningless and without covenant-making power. Our union with the death of Christ through baptism begins our covenant relationship with Almighty God. 

God’s Law Within (Jeremiah 31:33)

There are some important things to notice: first, who writes the covenant? God says that He does. Consider what Paul wrote about this: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10).

The “I” in Jeremiah 33 is a powerful reminder that the work of transforming us into God’s sons and daughters is not our work. We are “His” workmanship: God is the potter; we are the clay.

Second, notice what God is writing in our hearts—His “law.” People often think of law as written rules that bring order and administer justice in society. To the Jewish mind, the word has a different meaning: the law is God’s Torah, or God’s instruction and teaching for His people.

It is vital we learn the difference: for some, life in Christ is about a list of burdensome rules and regulations to be kept on pain of God’s wrath should they fail.

Do not let this be your thinking! The Bible is not a list of rules to be obeyed: It is the heavenly Father’s teaching and wise instruction that we might grow up before Him into beloved sons and daughters.

Where does God want to put His Law? In our “minds,” which literally means in our “intestines”! God wants His law or His Torah to become our meat and drink—our spiritual food for sustenance and growth. As Peter says: “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the Word, that you may grow thereby.” (1 Peter 2:2).

God, through Isaiah, has important counsel in this regard:

We need to take this council to heart. Truly, there is only one Bread that can give Life:

We must not neglect to take this food, both the written and living word, into us daily. Neglect will surely and inevitably bring spiritual death!

God also says He wants to “write” His Law on our hearts, that is, in our minds. A very powerful image is set before us in these words. The Hebrew word for “write” is engrave, “I will engrave My Law on their hearts.”

Do you see the image? Can you see Moses watching the finger of God engraving the Ten Commandments on the two stone tablets? This is what God has declared He will do for us in His new covenant, except that the tablet is our heart. He wants His Torah to be a permanent part of us, embedded in the very fabric of our being!

How does God intend to do this? How will He transform what we read on paper into something permanently etched into our thinking and habits of life? This is a vital question we must come to understand.

Of Jesus, it has been said that he was made “perfect through sufferings.” (Hebrews 2:10).  If this were true for our Master, must not then every child of God feel the finger of God in their life? And must not that finger inevitably search out and touch all the hidden areas of our weaknesses, to remove them, so the Father’s ways can be etched into our hearts? Think of King David’s life; it wasn’t an easy road. The comfortable, easy, wide way never fits anyone for life eternal. 

It is only the narrow way with all the pressures of hardship, tribulation, and suffering, the dangers to be avoided, and its ever-present snares for those who do not listen. It is only this way, as uncomfortable and painful as it can sometimes be, that can engrave in our hearts and lives those priceless, eternal qualities God wants in us.

And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.” (Hebrews 12:5-6).

There is a big “if” we must always remember: don’t forget who does the writing. We might think that with God working so hard to engrave His Word in us, we don’t have much to do. We would be very wrong to think this. Peter says: “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God… casting all your cares upon Him.” (1 Peter 5:6-7). This statement means we must always yield to our Father’s hand. But yielding to Him requires faith and trust on our part if we wish His work to succeed: “Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:11).

“Peaceable fruit” indeed! The wonderful end of God’s work is that we will all know Him! We will no longer have to encourage one another to know Him, to know His ways, His values, because when His work is completed in us, His word will be in us permanently. The experiences of our lives will finally leave our Father’s ways deeply and forever, engraved within us.

It is the same theme with a different image in Galatians 5:22-23:

Here, Paul writes of “the fruit of the Spirit.” “Fruit” is the outcome of a process. “Of the Spirit” tells us that the process, the work that brings forth this fruit, is the work of our Heavenly Father. If ever we can be loving, a source of joy and peace, slow to anger, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and in full control of ourselves, it will be a testimony to the success of the Father’s work, not the result of our superior self-discipline.

The wonderful promise of the new covenant is that we belong to God now, and, all that happens to us is in His hands: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people!” (Jeremiah 31:33). Whatever we experience from God in fulfillment of His Covenant Promise will always be for our good, because we are His People.

Our Sins Forgiven (Jeremiah 31:34)

That brings us to the final part of this wonderful covenant: when we are overwhelmed by our failures, by the stubbornness of our weaknesses, then the word of God’s covenant comes to our rescue: “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:34).

Our God offers complete and total cleansing. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9).

Summary

Step back now and take in with much thankfulness the greatness and wonder of God’s new covenant. He makes this with us, and will make it too with the people of Israel in the near future:

• God has given us the privilege as Gentiles to enter into this New Covenant now through Christ Jesus.
• God will put His Ways into our minds by giving us the true Bread of Life, and will engrave those ways in our hearts through His work in our lives.
• By this means, we will come to know God, that is, to truly understand and value His ways, because God’s ways will at last be in us permanently.
• And if we fail again and again? God has graciously provided for this also in His promise to forgive us and cleanse us and to remember our failures no more.

Ted Sleeper,
San Francisco Peninsula Ecclesia, CA