Throughout the Old Testament, we see God making covenants, or special promises, to His people. Some covenants were purely up to God to fulfill, like promising never to flood the Earth or to make a great nation out of Abraham. Others, like the covenant made through Moses and the Law, promised blessings or curses on Israel based on their behavior.
Covenants have always been crucial because they’ve defined God’s interactions with His creation. With each new covenant, God reveals more of His ultimate plan for mankind. The prophet Jeremiah not only tells us about a covenant that would be coming, but God reveals why this covenant will be the capstone to all of human history.
Christ in the Old Testament
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put My law within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)
Imagine hearing this as an ancient Israelite. This was a nation whose history was filled with ups and downs. They would be on fire for God, worshipping Him and purging idols from their homes. Then after a generation or two they’d start glancing around at other nations and begin adopting their worldviews, pushing God aside and eventually suffering great loss. Their worldview was built on rewards and consequences – if they followed God, they’d be rewarded. If they rejected the covenant He made with them, they would be disciplined.
But here, God is saying that a new covenant was coming. Yet this wasn’t just more of the law, but a completely new way that God would interact with His people. God’s worshippers would go from a weak nation and instead be present in every part of the world. Generations would grow up to know the truth of God. And, most incredibly of all, God would wipe away the record of their sins.
This nation, who grew up with the requirements of keeping the Mosaic Law and making frequent sacrifices for their sin, could never imagine how everything they knew about God was just a shadow of what He would bring in this new covenant.
Fulfilled in the New Testament
And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood. (Luke 22:19-20)
Such is the confidence we have toward God through Christ. Not that we are adequate in ourselves so as to consider anything as having come from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:4-6)
The blood of Jesus Christ established the promises of God that were hinted at centuries before the birth of our Savior. With the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God began the work of bringing people from around the world under the grace and forgiveness of the gospel.
Those who trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to pay the penalty for their sins are not only part of God’s family, but they are securely in God’s family forever. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God’s new covenant means that He forgives all our wrongdoing and will remember our sins no more. Any sin we commit was already punished on the cross, which leaves no punishment left for us.
This isn’t a cause for us to sin without remorse, but to praise God without ceasing. We hate our sin because God does. Our sin is why God had to come to Earth and be slaughtered on the cross. He had to be the perfect lamb that Old Testament Israel could never imagine with their regular sacrifice of lambs.
Christ set us free from the penalty of our sin, but also our requirement to keep the Law as part of the old covenant. That’s why Paul says that the letter (of the Law) kills, but the Spirit is the one who gives life. Our ability to do good or keep the Law is never enough to save us, nor will it ever be part of God’s requirement for our salvation. Jesus Christ is all we need for our salvation, and loving Him is our motivation for seeking to please God over pursuing sin. Not to save ourselves, but because Christ has already set us free.
