Details of the new covenant are given in Jer.
31: 31–34 where we have the only occurrence of the term
new covenant in the OT.
However, comparison of this passage with Ez. 11: 19, 20; 36: 24–30;
37: 15–28 clearly shows that Ezekiel also speaks of the same
covenant. Jer. 31: 31 explicitly states that this covenant is to be
made “with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah”—not the
Church. From Ez. 37: 15–28 we learn that one day God will “take the
children of Israel from among the nations” (v21) and the two houses
of Ephraim and Judah will be united again as one nation to form a
single kingdom on earth with “David my servant” as “their prince for
ever” (v25). All this is clearly in view of the “age to come” (Heb.
6: 5), not the present time. Again, Ez. 36: 24–30 reiterates the
return to the land by the nation (see v24) and further states “And
ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and ye shall
be my people, and I will be your God” (v28). The Church has nothing
to do with the land of Israel.
In Jer. 31: 31–34 God says seven times what
He will do— for this
covenant is unconditional, unlike that given at Sinai,
and depends on God alone for its
fulfilment. Under the new covenant, God’s law would be written on
the hearts of the children of Israel, their sins forgiven and not
remembered any more, and the whole nation would know Jehovah (see vs
33, 34). God would give them a new heart and a new spirit, and put
His Spirit within them (see Ez. 36: 26, 27). The Lord’s insistence
to Nicodemus “that ye should be born anew” (John 3: 7, my emphasis)
will be realised nationally when the “dry bones” ... “shall live”
(Ez. 37: 4, 5). Now much of what will be realised
nationally by Israel
in the day to come under the new covenant is realised now by the
Christian believer
individually. He is
born again (see 1 Pet. 1: 23), he knows God (see 1 John 4: 7, 8), he
is indwelt by the Holy Spirit (see Rom. 8: 11) and his sins are
forgiven (see Eph. 4: 32). However, there are also features of the
new covenant, such as the land, that have nothing whatsoever to do
with the Christian.
Turning to the NT and the institution of the
Lord’s Supper, we read “This cup [is] the new covenant in my blood,
which is poured out for you” (Luke 22: 20; see also Matt. 26: 28;
Mark 14: 24). Now we must always avoid reading the present into the
past. Those who heard the Lord were Jewish disciples and not
Christians. They would associate what the Lord said with the Kingdom
on earth as the attendant details in Matt. 26: 29, Mark 14: 25 and
Luke 22: 29, 30 show. Later, when hope of Israel’s repentance and
the establishment of the Kingdom in power on earth was fast fading,
Paul, as a result of revelation, put the Lord’s Supper in the
context of the Church. Accordingly, in the passage of 1 Cor. 11:
17–34 there is no mention of the Kingdom.
Like 1 Corinthians, Hebrews was written during
the transitional period of the Acts when there was still a
possibility of the Lord’s speedy return (see Acts 3: 20) and the
Kingdom being set up on earth. It was written to Jewish Christians
who were in danger of going back to the Judaism that they had
professed to have left. The writer uses the fact of the existence of
a new covenant in the OT to show that the old covenant of Sinai was
defective and near to disappearing (see Heb. 8: 8, 13). As the old
covenant of Sinai was inaugurated by blood (see Heb. 9: 18–22) and
had a mediator (see Gal 3: 19), the writer of Hebrews uses these
facts to show what the OT did not reveal, namely that the new
covenant would be established in the Lord’s blood (see Heb. 9: 14)
and that He would be its mediator (see Heb. 8: 6; 9: 15; 12: 24).
However, there is no thought whatever in these verses that the new
covenant was in force at the time Hebrews was written.
Finally, to 2 Cor. 3: 6: “who has also made us
competent, [as] ministers of [the] new covenant; not of letter, but
of spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit quickens”. Now the
absence of the definite article in Greek before the word
covenant makes it
characteristic. This needs more in the way of explanation, for the
English reader could be forgiven in thinking that Paul and others
were claiming to actually be the new covenant ministers. An example
may help: the writer once visited Tripoli in Libya where the
architectural style of many of the buildings is Italian. Looking at
such buildings and nothing else, the writer could have been forgiven
for thinking that he was actually in Italy. Now in a similar way,
many of the features that marked the apostle’s ministry were also
those contained in the new covenant—making his ministry
characteristically that of
the new covenant. It was thus a new covenant ministry, though “not
of letter”, that is literally, “but of spirit”—that is, having that
spirit or character.
