The New Covenant

Isa.42:6‑7

The New Covenant is the name given to the arrangement whereby God will reconcile to himself all who are willing, after full instruction and enlightenment, so to be reconciled. The time for the accomplishment of this purpose is the future Age when Christ reigns over the world to eliminate evil and bring the human race to that condition of unity with God which is essential before they can enter the eternal state. Since it is promised that all dedicated Christians, his Church, are to be associated with him in the life beyond it follows that they have a share with him in the administration of this Covenant.

The Bible contrasts the New Covenant with the old Law Covenant, concluded between the Lord and the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai with Moses as Mediator, and shows that it will succeed where the old Law Covenant failed. In becoming the people of the Covenant at Sinai, Israel undertook an obligation to extend the benefits of Divine rulership and law to all, "a light to the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth." (Isa.49:6 ISV) They never attained that goal. The New Covenant will be made primarily with Israel to replace the old one and this time they will achieve the Divine purpose.

The first intimation of the Lord’s intentions in this respect was made known through the prophet Isaiah. Ignoring the fact that Israel was already under the Law Covenant of Moses, the Lord promised that one day He will make an everlasting covenant, a covenant of peace, (Isa.54:10; 55:3; 61:8) with which He associated the extension of its blessings to all (54:3; 55:5; 61:9). Isa.60:3‑7 pictures those not of Israel willingly coming into the Covenant. Israel herself, says 42:6 and 49:8, is to be the embodiment of the Covenant, and by its means will open the blind eyes, bring out the prisoners from the prison, establish the earth, (Isa.42:7) and in general carry out all the beneficent activities which will result in the conversion of the world and the reconciliation of man to God. The Spirit of God will be upon Israel and his words will be in her mouth, never again to depart, and the result will be that the Name of the Lord will be reverenced from one bound of earth to the other. (ch.59:19‑21) Isaiah thus predicted that his people were to become the custodians and administrators upon earth of an arrangement the benefits of which are to be shared by all peoples on the face of the earth.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel, a century and a half later, were inspired to amplify this very general outline and define more clearly the work of the covenant. In Jeremiah’s 31st chapter the Lord speaks of his intention eventually to restore dispersed Israel to her own land in consequence of her repentance for past waywardness. The days come, He says, "that (when) I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah...but this shall be the covenant...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." (ch.31:31‑34) This is the essence of the covenant, the impressing of Divine law in the hearts of men, and this of course is the great purpose of the Age of Christ’s reign on earth. Again in ch.32:37‑41 the theme is reiterated; God will give them one heart and one way and they will be his people. The sincerity of Israel in this matter is shown by Jer.50:5 in which the scattered nation, about to be regathered by the Lord in order to embark upon its pre‑ordained mission, seeks the way back to the land so that they might be joined to the Lord in a "perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten." (Jer.50:5) Ezekiel crowns the presentation by associating the making of this "everlasting covenant of peace" with the end‑of‑the‑Age regathering of Israel, and her constitution into an agent in the Lord’s hand for his future plans, as pictured in his vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezek.37:25‑28).

So far nothing has been said as to who will fulfil the role, in respect to this covenant, that Moses did in respect to the old Law Covenant which it replaces. It was left to Malachi, the last of the Hebrew prophets, to introduce him and to provide a connecting link between the Old Testament and the New Testament views of the New Covenant. "Behold" he says, speaking as it were on behalf of the Almighty, "I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant." (Mal.3:1) The context places the application of this prediction at the end of this Age when the Lord is about to inaugurate his Millennial reign; here is pictured the arrival of the "messenger" of the covenant to commence its work—which is shown to be one of cleansing and purification as well as restoration. This word "messenger" in the A.V. is malak, angel. The angel of the covenant is obviously the angel or representative of God Most High and therefore easily seen in this context to be synonymous with the Lord Jesus Christ at his Advent and his kingdom. It is not difficult to see the parallel between the coming of the angel of the Lord at this time and that passage in the Book of Job where the same messenger or angel comes down to restore men from the grave and show to them the way of uprightness. "If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter…to shew unto man his uprightness: then He (God) is gracious unto him and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit (the grave): I have found a ransom." (Job 33:23‑24) This angel is also an "interpreter." This word is luts, meaning in general one who can converse with those of foreign language and so act as intermediary between two persons who do not understand each other or who are at variance, for which reason it is also used in the sense of ambassador or intercessor. So, Christ comes as intercessor between God and man in respect of the operation and making of this New Covenant just as Moses was the Mediator between God and Israel in respect of the previous one.

The New Testament takes up the theme with Paul’s words in Rom.11:26‑27, where he quotes Isa.59:20 as evidence for his argument that Israel is to be restored to Divine favour after the close of the call of the Church at the end of this present Age. The covenant is to be the outward expression of that restoration. He associates the New Covenant with the house of Israel, therefore, at the time of the removal of the national sins, which again is at the dawn of the Millennial Age. In a similar fashion the author of Hebrews, in Heb.8:7‑13, quotes Jer.31:31‑33 to indicate that the New Covenant is to be established to do for Israel what the old Law Covenant failed to do. In fact he concludes by pointing out that by promising a new covenant to effect this desired end God has made the old covenant obsolete so that it is ready to vanish away.

So far as this goes the New Covenant would appear to be purely a substitute, albeit a more effective substitute, for the old Law Covenant, and applicable only to Israel, and to others of humanity only in a secondary sense inasmuch as they embrace its principles and precepts. At this point, however, Jesus himself steps in.

During the Last Supper Jesus made a statement which so impressed those who heard it that it has been recorded in virtually the same terms in three Gospels. "This cup," He said, referring to the wine which was about to be shared by the assembled disciples, "is my blood of the New Testament (Covenant), which is shed for many for the remission of sins" (Matt.26:28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). There is some textual evidence for thinking that the word "New" should probably not appear in the text but that is of little consequence, for Jesus was obviously referring to the New Covenant. He was saying, as plainly as could be, that just as Moses sprinkled the blood of the burnt offerings associated with the Law Covenant over the people, so He himself was the corresponding offering for the New Covenant, and his blood the means of purification for the people in that day when the covenant should become effective, the day of the remission of sins for the whole world. Again, that day is the future Millennial Age. By that one allusion Jesus extended the scope of the New Covenant to include all humanity, in the future Age.

It is important to notice at this point that although the blood of Christ—symbol of life given—is efficacious for the remission of sin of all who so choose, not all obtain that remission through the Covenant. Those during this Age, from Pentecost onward, who receive the gift of justification by faith, through faith in Christ, and so dedicate their lives to him by becoming members of his Church, have their sins remitted at the time of their accepting Christ as Saviour and Lord (Rom.4:24‑25; 5:1‑2). This in many cases is centuries or even two thousand years ago whereas the New Covenant is not yet inaugurated and when it is, it is made with restored Israel. This seems to be the intent of Heb.9:14‑15 where v.14 maintains that the blood of Christ purges our conscience, that of the members of the Church, from dead works to serve the living God, whilst v.15 declares that "through this" (not "for this cause" as A.V.) "he is also the mediator of the New Covenant, that by means of death for deliverance from the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance."[Author’s own translation] V.14 obviously refers to the deliverance of Christians in this Age by faith in the blood—death of Christ,—whilst v.15 equally obviously refers to the same blood—same death—being equally efficacious to those who, being of Israel, are freed from their first covenant and enter into their own "everlasting inheritance." This last word, inheritance, Thayer defines as "that eternal blessedness in the kingdom of God which is promised," a good definition of the effect of the New Covenant in the next Age.

This reflection leads logically to 2 Cor.3:6 God "hath made us able ministers of the New Testament (Covenant)." Paul here is contrasting what he calls in v.7 "the ministration of death, written and engraven in (on) stones" i.e. the administration of the old Law Covenant with its record of failure, with what he describes in v.8 as "the ministration of the Spirit"—the administration of the coming New Covenant, something which he says is infinitely more glorious. This statement infers that Jesus, Mediator of the New Covenant as Moses was of the old one, will have his Church associated with him in the work of administering that Covenant from the heavens. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Galatians, makes the same point clear without so much as mentioning the New Covenant. He says (Gal.4: 21‑31), that the family circumstances of Abraham constitute an allegory of the two covenants preceding the as yet non‑existing New Covenant, Sarah, he says, pictures the original Covenant God made with Abraham, which promised that through his seed all the families of the earth will be blessed. Isaac, the son of Sarah, prefigures the promised Seed of that Covenant, and Paul himself is authority for the dictum that that Seed is Christ, and not only Christ himself, but all who are his Church. "If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise." (Gal.3:29) Hagar, the second wife, prefigured the Law Covenant, and Ishmael, the son of that union, the "earthly seed," the nation of Israel. The one is Jerusalem from above, the other Jerusalem upon earth. The Church therefore, children of the Abrahamic Covenant, become ministers of the New Covenant when that is established and in operation.

If indeed, as seems most likely, Apollos was the author of Hebrews, his familiarity with the old Levitical ritual and the Law Covenant would account for the stress laid on the "blood of Christ" in that epistle. He had already, in Heb.7:21‑22, elaborated the fact that the word of the Lord constituting Jesus a High Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec made him a surety or pledge of a covenant "better" than the old one. This association of the Priest‑Kingly rule of Melchisedec with the New Covenant confirms the place of that covenant in the next Age, but it also demands the appointment of our Lord to the position of Mediator at the time of the Divine decree, which was "when he ascended up on high." (Eph.4:8) That association of Melchisedec with the Covenant justifies the author of Hebrews in referring to the "blood of the covenant" even at a time so long before that covenant can come into operation. Hence in Heb.10:29 he refers to the "blood of the covenant, wherewith he was (we are) sanctified," in Heb.13:20 of the "blood of the everlasting covenant" making us perfect to do his will, and in Heb.12:24 of the "blood of sprinkling" speaking better things than that of Abel. In the first instance the disciples partook of the Cup at the Last Supper and were thereby "sanctified"—set apart for the Lord’s service—and in that have been followed in later times by all who have similarly given themselves to the Lord. That sharing of the Cup signified full and complete association, participation, with the Lord in all that He stands for and all He will do for the human race in the day of his kingdom. It may be not without significance that in the days of the old Covenant Moses sprinkled one half of the blood upon the people and poured out the other half upon the altar—the place of consecration to God.

So, at the end, all everywhere will share the blessings of the New Covenant. It was not always thus. Paul told the Ephesians (Eph.2:12) that they, Gentile Christians, were at one time "strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." The Abrahamic Covenant promised the development of a "Seed," and life for all through that seed. The Law Covenant promised life for those who could keep its provisions, but that was only for Israel. The Gentiles were outside the pale, until Christ came. "But now" he says " ye who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." (v.13) "Christ is [made] the end of the Law (Covenant)…to every one that believeth; the blessing of Abraham might (will) come on the Gentiles…through faith" (Rom.10:4; Gal.3:14). By virtue of his office as Mediator of the New Covenant he will restore all who will, of all the sons of men, to the Divine likeness, and together with his Church, able ministers of the New Covenant, will cause them to enter that blessed state which has been prepared for them from the foundation of the world.

March / April 1981