Covenant Theology 6: God's New Covenant in Christ

 

Many people claim to be Christians while living unchanged lives. We can worry like non-believers. We can set our minds on earthly things. The church is the cause of so much trauma in the world with narcissistic bully pastors or sexual abuse scandals. Many of us have no idea how to disciple the next generation of believers. Our lives and interactions with non-believers are often a greater case against the Christian faith than one for it. How can this be? What are we missing? I suggest the problem is biblical illiteracy, spiritual immaturity, and a shallow relationship with Jesus. Many who claim to be Christians, believe the right things, do the right things, attend the right church, but do not have a relationship with Jesus. Without a relationship with Jesus, we are not Christian. To learn about the characteristics of a relationship with Jesus, we have been tracing the story of God’s relationship with humanity through covenants. This message deals with the New Covenant in Christ and what the New Covenant has to say about our Christian lives. The New Covenant fulfills the covenant of works, grace, with Noah, with Abraham, the Old Covenant with Israel, and the Covenant with David. Until the New Covenant, every covenant had a problem. Humanity was the problem. God always kept his end, but whatever depended on us failed. Humanity is wicked and unable to keep any covenant until the New Covenant. The difference with the New Covenant is that God transforms human beings into covenant-keepers. This New Covenant is what the Old Testament looked forward to. It marks the righting of all wrong and the fulfillment of all God’s promises. It is what we Christians get to enjoy for the rest of our lives! What is this New Covenant? SIOS: The New Covenant is the sum of all the blessings we experience when we have a relationship with Jesus. We will (1) look at three OT passages that expect the NC, (2) see that Jesus fulfills these promises, (3) and explore what it means to live as God’s New Covenant People.

1. The Following are OT Passages that Describe the New Covenant (Deut 30:6, Jer 31:31–34, Ezek 36:25–28).

A. Deut 30:6 teaches that this New Covenant will make us into successful covenant partners. Deuteronomy is the second giving of the Law. Forty years after the Exodus, Moses instructs the second generation of Israelites how to live in the Promised Land in a relationship with God. Moses warns them that they will fail to love God. God will send them into exile in Assyria and Babylon, they will repent, and God will bring them back from exile. Moses says in Deut 30:3, “the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you… 5 he will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed…6 the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” This is the New Covenant. The Lord will do a miraculous act among his people so that they will become covenant keepers. This act began at Pentecost in Acts 2 with the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit. We do not live like saved people when we forget our conversion was a miracle. God has caused us to be born-again. We are a new creation. We cannot just be raised Christian by family. God acts!

B. Jer 31:31–34 teaches the New Covenant offers the forgiveness of sins: ³¹“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, ³²not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. ³³For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” We read of the supernatural act of God on the heart, as in Deut 30:6. We become covenant keepers. In the Old Covenant, the law was written on tablets of stone. In the New Covenant, God writes his law on our hearts so that we can truly know and love God (2 Cor 3:3–6). This passage informs us that our sins are forgiven in the New Covenant. For more on the way God forgives sin, Isa 53:3–6 describes the Davidic King dying on behalf of his people for their sin for their healing.

C. Ezekiel 36:25–28 teaches that members of the New Covenant will be full of the Holy Spirit. The people of Israel failed to obey God. God sends them into exile, but he promises to bring them back to their land. This is the word of the Lord: “²⁵I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. ²⁶And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. ²⁷And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. ²⁸You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” These three OT passages expect the Christian life. God forgives our sins and transforms us, he gives us a new heart, and God’s Spirit guides us so we can love him and keep his law.

2. The New Covenant promises are fulfilled in Christ. God required perfection from Adam and Eve to dwell in God’s presence. Jesus was perfect and fulfilled the covenant of works. Jesus lived the perfect life God requires and he also took the punishment our sin deserved (Rom 5:18). Jesus is the promised son of Eve who crushes the head of the devil (Gen 3:15//1 John 3:8). The Covenant with Noah teaches that God judges sin and saves those who trust in him. Jesus shows us how it is possible for us not to face judgment. He has already taken our judgment. The blessings for all the families of the world through Abraham comes through Abraham’s descendant, Jesus (Gal 3:16), who provides the forgiveness of sin to all who trust in him. Israel failed to be the kingdom of priests that brings light to the gentiles. Jesus, the Davidic King and Great High priests lived righteously and died on behalf of the nation and took the punishment for his people’s sin. Jesus fulfills the Old Covenant by keeping its requirements and showing how it pointed to him. Jesus is God, the sacrificed lamb, the priest who makes the offering, and he is even the temple where the sacrifice takes place since (Immanuel). Jesus inaugurates the NC by sending the HS to cleanse our sins and allow us to love God like we were created to.

The NT is the New Covenant document. The following texts are about the NC. At the Last Supper in Luke 22:19–20, about the cup, Jesus said it was “poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” In Matt 26:27 Jesus calls the wine, “his blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Hebrews 8–10 describes the way Jesus inaugurates the New Covenant. Heb 9:15 offers a great summary: Jesus “is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.” Through his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus made us covenant keepers. 2 Cor 5:17 describes the effect of the New Covenant: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Christians, have a renewed mind, new heart, and God’s Spirit guiding our lives to please him.

3. What does it look like to be God’s New Covenant people? 1. The primary characteristic of a new covenant member is love God and all people. The New Covenant is the fulfillment of God’s plan to bless all the families of the earth in Abraham. Think of the last negative interaction you have had with someone? The New Covenant, our relationship with Jesus means we must love all people. And just like that, Covenant theology solved racism in America! If the first Christians who were Jews were bigoted and kept to themselves, no one in this room would be a Christian. But that was never an option since the Spirit of God moves us to love everyone and want everyone to know Jesus. We want to welcome everyone in a church, yellow, black, red, democrat, republican, gay, prostitute, terrorist, we love the world and want everyone to turn from sin and come to faith in Christ! Does it mean we are perfect? Yes and no. We are perfect because we are in Christ and so God sees Christ’s righteousness when he sees us. Outwardly, until Jesus returns and finishes the work he began in us, we will continue to struggle with sin. We never have to sin, but we keep on willingly sinning.

2. We must know our blessings. If you are a New Covenant member, you are born-again, you are a new creation, you have a renewed mind, a new heart, the Spirit of God lives within you, and guides you so that you can keep his will! You have the assurance that your sins are completely forgiven. If you are not sure you are forgiven you are not enjoying eternal life to the fullest! God wants you to know you are forgiven. That is trusting in his love and his power!

3. New Covenant members invite non-members to join the New Covenant. How do you do this? The more someone understands the New Covenant, the better they will be at inviting someone to join. The New Covenant is a relationship with Jesus. The fundamental of a relationship with Jesus is believing that Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins. The word “belief” can be misleading because we believe a lot of things without letting the belief impact our lives. We must believe in him in a way that leads us to rejoice in him as Savior, delight in him as an intimate friend, and submit to him as our Lord and King in all areas of our life. The better our relationships with Jesus, the easier sharing about him will be.

4. We need to be aware of the curse of the New Covenant. Many go to church and do not have a relationship with God. If we go through life without a relationship with God, after death, we are separate from him forever. The curse that follows unbelief in Christ is the punishment of Hell. Because both Ps 5:4 and Is 59:2 teach that sin separates us from God. Without the forgiveness of sin, God punishes sin with an eternity separate from God in the eternal torment of Hell. New Covenant members must contemplate this curse, to lovingly and zealously warn those outside to join the New Covenant.

5. God gives us a particular way to apply the New Covenant with signs of the Covenant. The signs of the covenant are signs God gives us to confirm our faith to enjoy the blessings of the covenant. The first sign is baptism which replaces circumcision. It is the sign of entry into the Covenant. If you love Jesus and have not been baptized you need to do that to show the promises of the washing away of sins by the Holy Spirit, union with Christ, and being born-again to walk in the newness of life all belong to you. The second sign Jesus gives us is the Lord’s Supper. It communicates coming to Christ and relying on his broken body and shed blood for the forgiveness of sins. We always do it with the church family so that as we are one with Christ, we are also in Christ united to one another. Christians who do not attend church are depriving themselves of the gathering that celebrates the blessings of the New Covenant. Covenant theology teaches us God works through the Covenant Community, so it is an argument for being involved in Church.

Conclusion: Our God is a God of relationships. From the beginning of the Bible, we see God created us in his image so that he can have a relationship with you. We know him as Father, Savior, Friend, and Lord. When we take his relationship seriously, the Spirit will transform us to be radically loving, caring, humble, and wise to bear witness to the Glory of God.