The New Covenant with Israel

RV233-01

The New Covenant with Israel

Part of the blessing which was promised to Abraham, and subsequently to his posterity, was in the form of this New Covenant which is yet to be fulfilled in the future for the Jewish people. The blessing was primarily grace salvation, and then new birth spirituality. The Old Testament does allude to being born again spiritually, and to enjoying eternal life in heaven.

So, we begin by asking you to turn in your Bibles to Jeremiah 31:31-34, where the record is to be found concerning this promise of a New Covenant for the Jewish people. First of all, we will look at the features of this New Covenant.

The ten northern tribes of Israel, at this point in the history of the Jewish people, had been taken into foreign captivity by Assyria in 722 B.C. So, all of that northern kingdom was gone, and overrun with an alien people. The two southern tribes, which composed the kingdom of Judah, had fallen away from God, and they would very soon be taken into foreign captivity to Babylon, which happened in 586 B.C., shortly after the time that Jeremiah wrote.

At this darkest point in the history of the Jewish people, God comes through with the glittering hope of the New Covenant. I stress right at the beginning, as we will read these passages, for you to be aware of the fact that this covenant is with Israel. There is a new covenant for the church, and it is always best to remember to keep Israel and the church separated. While there is a connection and interrelationship to some degree with Israel's New Covenant, the church's New Covenant is totally different, and we'll touch upon that as we go along. But we should put right up front that we are now talking about a New Covenant to the Jewish people.

This is an unconditional covenant. There was only one covenant that was established by God with the Jewish people which was conditional. That meant that they had to do something to receive something in the way of blessing from God. There was an "if" clause in the covenant, and that covenant was the Mosaic Covenant. All the other covenants God made with Israel (the Palestinian; the Davidic; and, the New Covenant) had no "if" clause in them. This is a promise from God to the Jewish people, and therefore it is inevitable that these covenants will be fulfilled, and they will realize the blessings of them.

So, in Jeremiah 31:31, we read, "'Behold, days are coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah." This verse makes it immediately clear that we are dealing with the Jewish people. This covenant relates to the Jews. It relates specifically here to the two parts of the nation, which, at that time, had separated into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Israel was already in captivity; and, Judah was heading for captivity shortly into Babylon for 70 years.

In verse 32, this is going to be a different covenant from the one that God previously had established with the nation: "'Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in 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."

The Mosaic Covenant

Basically, what that covenant said was, "Do good, and I'll bless you. If you don't, I won't." So, they found very quickly that they could not obey the Mosaic Law system. Moses no sooner came down off the mount with the Ten Commandments, than he found them violating the principles of freedom encased in those commandments. They were not able to obey that old covenant. So, we have the contrast here between new and old. The Mosaic Covenant is the old covenant, and the new covenant is in contrast to that.

Then verse 33 says, "'But this is the covenant which I'll make with the house of Israel after those days,' declares the Lord. 'I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.'" This New Covenant would be a new law, but it would be one which is written upon the soul of the Jew. It will not be a covenant which has external rules that he is trying to keep.

Under the Mosaic system, he had no power of the Holy Spirit to do right. He just had to do it by his own sheer determination. Now God says, "I'm going to make a New Covenant. We're going to have a new relationship with one another. And this covenant is going to be as demanding in righteousness as the old covenant was, but it's going to be tucked away in the depths of your soul, and there's going to be a well of positive volition that God the Holy Spirit is going to trigger in you that will make you want to do right, and will enable you to do right." What a contrast!

Verse 34 then says, "'And they shall not teach again each man his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,' declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.'" The effect of the New Covenant upon the life of the Jews was going to be something fantastic. The effect is going to be that they'll all have a good knowledge of God. They'll all have a sense of deep doctrinal principles by which to relate themselves to the living God. No one is going to have to go around explaining doctrine to them. No one is going to have to be calling them back to these principles. It's just going to be like an eternal river flowing out of the mentality of the soul, and governing their lives.

At this dark point in their history, this must have been a euphoric bit of information – a tremendously exciting piece of news. It was not comprehended, by any means, in the depth of its meaning, or how it was all going to be carried out. But it did tell the Jew, as verse 34 points out, that they're all going to know the Lord, which means they're all going to be saved. Secondly, it says that all their sins would be forgiven, and they would be remembered no more. This indicates that the justice of God has been satisfied toward their sin. That means that God was going to take away their moral guilt, which was done by the death of Christ.

Then the blessing is made even more significant in verses 35-37, which stress the fact that the Jewish people will always exist, and that this New Covenant blessing will be in perpetuity to this people. This is very important, because the Jewish people are the only people in the history of mankind where you have a nation of a certain group of people like the Jews, and the nation was destroyed, and then to come back and become a nation again. Do you realize that? No other people on the face of the earth has ever had that experience. Only the Jew has been dispersed; destroyed as a nation; and, then, in our very lifetime, been brought back once more as a nation.

What does that tell you? That tells you what all the Old Testament prophets have been trying to say: God is not finished with the Jew. He has a tremendous, great future. One of those elements of that future is this New Covenant, because this has never been fulfilled. You can just read it for yourself, and see that this is not true of the Jew today; it is never been true of the Jew; and, it has to be fulfilled at some time in the future.

Verse 35 says, "'Thus says the Lord; who gives the sun for light by day, and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night; who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar. The Lord of Hosts is His name. If this fixed order departs from before Me,' declares the Lord (the laws of nature, and the natural progression of the stellar bodies), 'then the offspring of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever.'" When you see that the sun doesn't rise; when you see that the moon is not in the sky; when you see that the stars are not giving light by night; and, when you see that the ocean does not have its tide where it ends and recedes, then you can believe that Israel is going to cease from being a nation before Me."

The Jew and the Church

Well, for a while, until 1948, indeed people thought the Jew was amazing. 2,500 years later, he still exists, and you can identify him as a Jew. He still racially what he has always been. But he doesn't have a country. He doesn't have a nation. Yet, God said, "You're going to be a nation before Me forever." How will we deal with these Scriptures? Is God going back on His word? God changed His mind even though He didn't put an "if" clause in this covenant. Or God has substituted a different group. And that isn't true.

Verse 37 says, "'Thus says the Lord. If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,' declares the Lord." There is doubt about it that these people were guilty of a great, great, monstrous evil. They went to idolatry. They went into all kinds of horrible things, and God, in His grace, dealt with them, and which, as time went by, He graciously forgave. But He did that on the basis of His own decision.

So, here is the perpetuity of the Jewish people forever. So, the New Covenant is something that is going to go on forever, and it is forever in force.

Well, if there is anything that is not in the mouth of a Jew today, it is the Word of God. What he calls and portrays as the Word of God is complete misconception. He is there in blindness. But here, God says, "The time is coming when My Spirit is going to come out to the people of God, My Jewish people, and My word will be in their mouths." What's going to bring that about? The Redeemer who comes to Zion. When they go back to Christ, and when they finally accept their Messiah, this is what's going to happen to them. When will take place? In the millennium.

There is also Ezekiel 16:60. Ezekiel says, "Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth. And I will establish an everlasting covenant with you." Here is the New Covenant by a different name. Here it is called the everlasting covenant: "'Then you will remember your ways, and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both your older and your younger. I will give them to you as daughters, but not because of your covenant. Thus, I will establish My covenant with you. You shall know that I am the Lord, in order that you may remember and be ashamed, and never open your mouth anymore because of your humiliation, when I have forgiven you for all that you have done,' the Lord declares."

God says, "I'm going to take My nation Israel, and I'm going to bring forgiveness to you for all you have done. For all the terrible rejection over all these centuries, I am going to bring you forgiveness. When I do, I'm going to forget it, and you are to do the same."

The Provisions of the New Covenant

1. No Contingencies

   First of all, in this passage in Jeremiah 31:31-34, this is a grace covenant because God says, "I will." He Himself is the one who will do it, and He doesn't place it upon any contingency of what the Jews must do.

2. Everlasting

   A second point to observe is that it's an everlasting covenant. As long as nature keeps going, this covenant is in force.

3. A Renewed Minds and a Renewed Heart

   The third thing to observe is that there will be imparted to Israel a renewed mind and a renewed heart.

4. Restored to Favor and Blessing

   Fourth, they will be restored to favor and blessing of God.

5. Sins Forgiven

   Fifth, their sins will be forgiven.

6. The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

   Sixth, there will be the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to enable them now to do right.

7. The Teaching Ministry of the Holy Spirit

   Seventh, there will be the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit so that the will of God will be made known to all those who have receptive hearts.

8. Material Blessings

   Jeremiah 32:41 adds the point that there will be the blessing of the land (material blessings). God says to them: "And I will rejoice over them again to do them good, and I will faithfully plant them in this land (the Promised Land) with all my heart, and with all my soul." They will be planted there, and God will prosper and bless them.

   Ezekiel 34:25-27: "And I will make a covenant of peace with them." Here the New Covenant is called the covenant of peace: "And eliminate harmful beasts from the land so that they may live securely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods." Now this passage gives us the clue as to when this covenant will be fulfilled. It's the millennium: "And I will make them, and the places around My hill, a blessing, and I will call cause showers to come down in their seasons, and they will be showers of blessings." Hmm, that's a good song title: Showers of Blessings. This is where it came from.

   "Also, the tree of the field will yield its fruit, and the earth will yield its increase. They will be secure on their land. Then they will know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the vase of their yoke, and have delivered them from the hand of those who enslave them." What a great promise! God says, "Yes, I'm going to give you salvation; I'm going to forgive you your sins; and, I'm going to prosper you beyond your fondest dream in a material way.

   Other passages indicate that part of the New Covenant will be the blessing of having their temple rebuilt; wars will cease; and, the foundation of all of this, of course, is the blood of Christ.

The law, furthermore, could not cleanse the soul from sin, and it could not produce blessing through the indwelling and filling of the Holy Spirit. The Jewish people to this day still make this mistake. They think that if they keep the rules of the Old Testament, that they will have their sins cleansed, and that they will come into God's blessings. What the Law did, the apostle Paul tells us, was stimulate a natural rebellion that was in the old sin nature. All the Law did was create the wet paint syndrome. You see a sign that says, "Wet paint. Do not touch." And what is the first thing you do? Your old sin nature says, "Look around. Is anybody watching? Go ahead. Touch it. Leave your big prints on it. It's wet. There it is." They were right. It is wet.

There is that inclination of the sin nature to break the rule. The Law forced a standard externally on a person, which internally he rejected, even if he had no objection to that Law. He just internally, by his sin nature, was opposed to it. What the new covenant promised is a new nature within the Jew which would cause him to want to obey God from within. When Jesus Christ comes as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, this is one of the greatest changes that He is going to bring about in the human race. You can see how this just has no limits, as we try to think about what the implications and consequences will be.

The Law, thus, was to be placed within the Jew, and he was to have the Spirit of God within him, enabling him now to obey the moral code, and the will of God. This passage in the Old Testament, speaking about the spiritual renewal of the Jewish people under the New Covenant, is what Jesus was referring to when He asked Nicodemus why he did not understand what it meant to be born-again. To be born again spiritually, Nicodemus did not make the connection. The era of the New Covenant is going to be the era of the Jews' finest hour.

How will this new law be internalized? In Joel 2:28-32, we have a very important passage. It tells us how this New Covenant is going to work within the Jew. Verses 28 and 29 are quoted in the New Testament by Peter on the day of Pentecost. Joel 2:28: "And it will come about after this (after the institution of the New Covenant), that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy; your old men will dream dreams; and, your young men will see visions."

Here is something tremendously different in the experience of the Jewish nation. Your sons and daughters are going to speak forth the Word of God's truth. This is what we'd like to see our kids do today. This is why we teach them. This is why we warn them. This is why we appeal to them to honor God. What are we asking them to do? We want them to prophesy. We want them to speak forth the Word of God's truth.

"Your old men are going to dream dreams." Dreams will tell again the mind of God: "Your young men – they're going to have great visions of the will of God: "And even on the male and female servants, I'll pour out My Spirit in those days." No one will be excluded. The word "pour out" means that the Holy Spirit is going to be placed within the Jew. This is described in Ezekiel 11:19 as being a new spirit that is put within.

So, God is going to pour His life into the Jews as a human father pours his life into the life of his children. Joel predicts a future time when the Holy Spirit would fill (that is, control) the Jews.

Peter, on the day of Pentecost, was trying to explain what had happened with the coming of the Holy Spirit that formed that new body of saints, the church. Peter referred to this Scripture because it was obvious that the Holy Spirit was doing something tremendous. It was a tremendous movement of the Holy Spirit where people were rising to something they could not have done before. Here it was a great sense of spirituality, and here it was the great power of the expression of the Word of God in foreign languages.

So, Peter, on Pentecost, noted that their tongues experience was similar to what was going to happen in Israel under the Holy Spirit at the Second Coming of Christ when the New Covenant was instituted. Joel 2 (this chapter) applies to Israel at the time when the Jews are a converted people. This is not true of them on the day of Pentecost, and Peter was not saying that Joel was being fulfilled on that day. Joel's prophecy applies only when Christ the King is on this earth to rule as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He, at the time of Pentecost, was in heaven.

So, I stress this to you because this is a favorite deception of the charismatics. They say that Joel 2 was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, and therefore all these spectacular, supernatural expressions from God are possible today. The blessings of the Abrahamic covenant, which Israel was to receive, was the future indwelling of the Holy Spirit; that is, to be born-again. Under this condition, the Jews would be filled with the Spirit of God, and the result would be emotional ecstatics in the millennium, similar to what was experienced that day on the day of Pentecost. That kind of thing was terminated in 70 A.D. when the nation of Israel was finally dispersed.

When the devil is running things in this world, as he is today, your emotions have to be very carefully controlled. Believers whose emotions are not controlled by the principles of the Word of God will make spiritual fools of themselves. Worse than that, they will make spiritual casualties of themselves, and they will go down in flames because the devil makes ecstatics today his primary weapon against the Christians. He gets the Christian emotionally off-balance. Does that being you foam at the mouth. No. It just means that your mind goes out of sync with the mind of God. You get so emotionally off-balance that you become a spiritual casualty.

The blessing factor of Joel 2 for the Jews is yet in the future, and it is not in operation today because it can't be. But when the millennium takes place, and Satan is bound, then there will be no more deception, and people will have an exhilarating time. You talk about testimony meetings. What testimony meetings people will have then! Their emotions will really turn up high, and every bit of it will be within the dignity of the Word of God.

The agent of this New Covenant is the Lord Jesus Christ. The book of Hebrews was written in order to demonstrate that God had brought these Jews (to whom this book was written, and who are still trying to hang on to the old covenant) to a better covenant – a New Covenant based on better promises. And these have been spelled out here in Hebrews 8. We're going to begin at Hebrews 8:6. Here is again the repetition of the Old Testament promise to the Jewish people not yet fulfilled. But it is speaking to these Jews, to try to show them that the Old Testament had a covenant that was a flop, but it promised them a better one, and that that one was through the agency of Christ.

Hebrews 8:6: "But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry (that is, Christ), by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant (the New Covenant), which has been enacted on better promises" – a promise where God the Holy Spirit indwells and enables you to do right: "For if that first covenant (the Mosaic Covenant) had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them, He says, 'Behold, the days are coming,' says the Lord, 'when I will affect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Jacob (quoting here this Jeremiah passage), not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in My covenant, and I did not care for them,' says the Lord." Their rebellion caused them to be rejected.

"'For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,' says the Lord. 'I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them upon their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall not tell everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brothers, saying, 'Know the Lord.' For all shall know Me from the least to the greatest of them. For I'll be merciful to their iniquities, and I'll remember their sins no more.'"

The New Covenant is a better covenant based on better conditions. So, the writer of this book (which might have been the apostle Paul, incidentally) says, "God promised us a better covenant, and Jesus Christ brought it. Forget the Mosaic system. It's a bust. The blood of Christ is the basis of this New Covenant."

Hebrews 9:14-15 say, "How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And for this reason, He is the mediator of a New Covenant," in order that, since a death has taken place, for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant (the Mosaic system), those who have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance." Here it is very clear that the New Covenant required the death of Christ. It required a God-man Savior as the basis for God to be able to take over completely.

Hebrews 10:16 speaks of the New Covenant to Israel: "'This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,' says the Lord. 'And I put My laws upon their heart. Upon their minds I will write them.'" All of these are Old Testament passages being quoted.

Then verse 17-18 says that God cleanses from all sins. He's not going to remember their lawlessness anymore. There is forgiveness of these things. There is no longer any offering for sin. The Roman Catholics are wrong to say that there is an offering necessary for sin again, and that what took place upon the cross must be continued. ... God says, "There's no more offering. The basis is completed for this New Covenant."

Then verse 19 says that God provides boldness: "Since, therefore, brethren, we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus." The holy place is within those inner rooms of the sanctuary that the Jew would never think of going into. The writer says, "Jewish brethren, we are right there in the holy of holies. And we're there because of a New Covenant that God has established on the basis of the death of Christ that has brought us right into the very presence of God.

Verse 20 says, "By a new and living way, which He inaugurated for us through the veil that is His flesh." The flesh of Christ is compared to the veil that kept them out from that inner sanctuary.

There are Two New Covenants

Every one of us is a different species. We're a different species of human being. You are not like all those people that you rub shoulders with day-by-day who are not believers. You are a distinctively different species of human being. That makes you the royal family of God. You people are aristocrats. That is what the New Covenant is for the church-age – that we are aristocrats in the family of God. That was never known in past history.

Take a look at Romans 11:26. If you will remember back to our studies of the book of Romans, chapters 9, 10, and 11 go together. Chapter 9 tells what? It describes the past history of Israel. Chapter 10 does what? It describes the present condition of Israel? Chapter 11, maybe you can figure out now, deals with what? The future of Israel. In Romans 11:26-27, dealing with the future of Israel, Paul says, "And thus all Israel will be saved." In the millennium, every Jew who enters will be born-again, and he'll come under the blessing of the New Covenant: "Just as it is written, the deliver will come from Zion. He will remove ungodliness from Jacob, and this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins." What covenant? It is referring to the New Covenant.

Romans 11:26-27 is telling us certain things. Israel is to be restored as a nation at the Second Coming. The context of these passages here in this is recognizing that Israel has been set aside, but is to be restored as a nation. This restoration takes place when the deliver comes out of Zion at the same time that God fulfills the New Covenant. That is when the millennium begins. The New Testament teaches that Israel's New Covenant is separate from the church's New Covenant. The church's New Covenant is being fulfilled now. We now have all the privileges of being seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We now have all those distinctives such as the indwelling Holy Spirit, so that you and I have a huge compulsion within us to do what is right and to obey God, unless we become extremely negative to the Word of God, and unless we fall into a confession, and into a status of reversionism; and, even then we're miserable, because we know we're out of step with God, no matter how we try to kid ourselves. But we enjoy these specific privileges of the New Covenant.

We are our own priests as part of the New Covenant. We have a whole Bible (a completed Scripture). We have the local church ministry with a pastor-teacher gift to inform us of the Word of God and the contents of Scripture. We have the capacity to confess sin, and come into temporal fellowship with God. We have the dwelling of Christ so that He is within us constantly. We have all these tremendous church-age, distinctive relationships. That is part of the New Covenant.

Perhaps you will see now why Jesus connected the New Covenant of the church to the communion service. The Lord's Supper commemorates what? It commemorates the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is the basis of the New Covenant for Israel, and is the basis of the New Covenant for the church. Christians enjoy the blessings of this New Covenant through new birth, and then through fellowship with the Lord through temporal fellowship (through confession of known sins). That is the new quality of the covenant with us. It's different from the quality of the New Covenant for Israel.

The Lord's Supper

So, the bread speaks about the body of Christ, the unique God-man without a sin nature, who therefore was qualified to pay for the sins of the world. He could bear them. He had none of His own. The wine, representing His blood, speaks of His death in sacrifice, which was effective because He was sinless, and His death satisfied the justice of God for the sins of mankind.

Then verse 25 says, "This is the New Covenant" (or the New Testament). And it refers to the New Covenant which has replaced the old covenant of Moses for the Jews, and which has replaced the new relationship that we gentiles have come into as members of the church. This is what makes the Lord's Supper so meaningful, in part. It is a demonstration of the fact that we have a New Covenant relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, with all that that implies to us in our royal position.

Luke 22:20: "In the same way, He took the cup, after they had eaten, saying, 'This cup that is poured out for you is the New Covenant in My blood." Here again, this passage is connecting the New Covenant with the Lord's Supper.

The blessings of the New Covenant then have come upon the gentiles. This is indicated in Galatians 3:13-14: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (or on wood),' in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith. What was the key blessing that Abraham said he would bring to all the world? Salvation. And here Paul is making clear that the blessing of Abraham that we share (not the blessing of being part of the Jewish people; not the blessing of the Promised Land; not the material blessings; and, not any of the relationships of Judaism). Our blessings are all spiritual, but they are based upon this New Covenant based upon the blood of Christ.

Christians today share this part of the blessing of the Abrahamic Covenant. In that respect, we are the children of Abraham. The ultimate fulfillment of the New Covenant in reference to the Jews awaits the Second Coming of Christ. The Jews still do not enjoy the benefits and the blessings of that enormous promise given by Jeremiah in those dark days so many centuries ago of the New Covenant. They can come into the blessings of the church's New Covenant when they believe in Christ as Savior, and become part of the body of Christ. But the New Covenant to them as a nation – that they have not experienced.

Acts 2:15-21 describe how the Spirit of God once more is going to be pour forth upon them. It indicates that these things will take place in the midst of the tribulation conditions where the interstellar bodies out in space are in turmoil, and verse 21 says, "And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Romans 11:26-27 we have looked at. Ezekiel 34:25-31 also indicates that the New Covenant for the Jew awaits the Millennial Kingdom. The New Covenant for the church is being fulfilled now. Our New Covenant is all those grace blessings. The New Covenant for Israel, where finally the law of God and the mind of God is written upon their hearts and upon their minds, and their emotions are willing to accept that – that yet comes from the future.

Conclusions about Israel's New Covenant

1. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

   The Old Testament teaches a new covenant for Israel. That refers to the natural descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

2. In the Future

   The Old Testament teaches that Israel's New Covenant is yet in the future.

3. In the Millennium

   The Old Testament indicates that the period of fulfillment of Israel's new covenant will be in the millennium.

4. Not just for Israel Alone

   The term "New Covenant" in the New Testament is used in a wider meaning than to Israel alone. Some of the blessings of Israel's New Covenant are now enjoyed by Jews as members of the church, the body of Christ. These they share with gentile believers. But the church has a New Covenant of its own, distinct from Israel. But there is an overlapping of blessings.

5. The New Testament does not Abrogate Israel's New Covenant

   The New Testament nowhere abrogates Israel's New Covenant, or assigns it to the church.

6. The Second Coming of Christ

   The New Testament teaches definitely that Israel's New Covenant will be fulfilled at the Second Coming of Christ.

7. An End to the Mosaic Covenant

   Hebrews 8 quotes Israel's New Covenant only to show that the Old Testament anticipated an end to the Mosaic Covenant. Some people would view the quoting in Hebrews 8 (this New Testament passage), and say, "You see, the New Covenant of the Jews has become the New Covenant of the church. No. The church's New Covenant is quoted to show the Jews that the Old Testament indicated it was going to be a replacement.

8. The New Covenant with the Church

   Hebrews 8 also shows that Christians have a better covenant than what the old Mosaic Covenant offered. The church's New Covenant is not Israel's New Covenant.

9. The truth of the matter is that "Israel" means "Israel." Her promises are not fulfilled by the church. Since Israel's promises are unfulfilled, they must be realized in the future, relative to discuss the New Covenant. That means that in the millennium, the Word of God cannot be broken. The position is two separate New Covenants: one to the Israelites, in contrast to the Mosaic Covenant, to be fulfilled in the millennium; and, the New Covenant with the church, in contrast to the time when the mystery of the special body of Christ was unknown. Here comes a new revelation. It is a New Covenant in that respect, and that is being fulfilled by the Holy Spirit and our relationship to Him now.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1993

Back to the Revelation index