New Covenant

The New Covenant

God made a covenant with Israel, and promised a new one. That new covenant was sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ, and anyone may enter it.

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.

A covenant is a commitment God establishes with people: He promises, and He shows how life is lived inside that promise. The whole Bible reads better when seen as the story of those covenants, and of how all of them pointed to the same place.

Two covenants, one God

What God did, and what He promised

Old Covenant

With Israel, at Sinai

God brought Israel out of Egypt and established a covenant with that nation: He gave them His law, a priesthood, a tabernacle and a system of sacrifices. It was not a mistake or a failed plan. The law is holy, just and good, and it did exactly what God intended: expose sin and teach, like a tutor, that Someone else was needed. What failed was not the covenant, nor the One who gave it, but the people, who did not remain in it.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

New Covenant

With everyone who believes, in Christ

God Himself promised through the prophets that He would make a new covenant: no longer a law written on stone to be kept from the outside, but His law placed in the heart, the final forgiveness of sins, and His Spirit dwelling in His people. Jesus Christ inaugurated that covenant, and it does not depend on the nation you were born into.

I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The center

Jesus Christ is the covenant

The new covenant is not a better set of rules: it is a Person. Jesus Christ is its mediator, its priest and its sacrifice all at once. He said so the night before He died, lifting the cup — and that is why everything we believe turns around Him and not around us.

This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

Point by point

What changed, and what did not

Every line carries its reference so you can check it by opening the Bible. Do not take our word for it: read it.

Mediator: Moses, a faithful servant in God’s house.; Jesus Christ, the Son, over His own house.
Sacrifice: The blood of animals, repeated every year, which could never take away sins.; The blood of Christ, offered once and for all.
Where the law is: Written on tablets of stone, outside the person.; Written by the Spirit on the heart.
Priesthood: Hereditary and mortal: priests died and others took their place.; Christ remains for ever, and lives to intercede for us.
Where God dwells: In a temple built with hands, in one particular place.; In His people: every believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Who enters: Israel as a nation, chosen by God from among the peoples.; Everyone who believes, from any nation, without distinction.
How you enter: By birth into the people, and by the sign of circumcision.; By faith in Jesus Christ, and by being born again of the Spirit.
Duration: Temporary: a shadow of things to come.; Everlasting, sealed by the resurrection of Christ.

Anyone may enter

No waiting list and no prerequisites

This is the hardest part to believe and the one Scripture repeats most insistently: the door is open to everyone, and someone else already paid the price.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.
But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

A necessary clarification

The covenant was broken, but God has not cast away Israel

The old covenant did not fail on God’s side. It went unfulfilled because the people did not remain in it — God Himself says so as He announces the new one, and that is why a covenant was needed that did not depend on human obedience. Even so, He has not cast away His people. Those broken off were broken off through unbelief, and can be grafted in again if they do not continue in it, because God’s calling is irrevocable. Believers from other nations do not replace Israel: they are grafted into a root that was not theirs, and that calls for gratitude, never for pride.

Because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

So how do you enter?

By recognising that you are far off and cannot draw near on your own, believing that Jesus Christ died and rose for you, and asking Him to receive you. There is no formula: there is a Person to turn to. If you would like to talk it through with someone, write to us.

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