Important New Covenant Considerations - Part 2

5.  God promised to make the new covenant “with the house of Israel” (Jer. 31:33).  Why, then, does it say in Heb. 8:6, 10 (NAS) quoting that prophecy, that the new covenant “a better covenant...has been enacted,” putting its enactment in past time?

  The inspired author wrote of the new covenant, that it “has been enacted,” because he accepted the witness of the Holy Spirit.  He recognized the meaning of Jeremiah’s prophecy.  God had indeed enacted the new covenant “with the house of Israel.”  For about three years it was made only with members of that house, only with Jews.  God worded the promise that way because He foresaw that respective remnants of the house of Israel and the house of Judah would be together following their captivities (Ezek. 37:18-22).  People of those two houses were together throughout and following the ministry of Jesus; and he addressed them as the “house of Israel” (see Matt. 10:6, 15:24).  However, only a relatively few of that “house” accepted Jesus as Messiah so as to be received into the covenant.  But that is no cause to conclude that God did not keep His promise to make it with that house.  The fulfillment of his promise is affirmed:  “As many as received him (Jesus), to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name (the name of Christ Jesus our Lord)” (John 1:11, 12).

  Cornelius and his group were the first Gentiles received into the new covenant (Acts 10).  They too believed in Jesus.  Paul shows that Gentiles “were grafted in among them (the natural olive branches), and with them partake of the root and fatness of the olive tree” (Rom. 11:17).  Believing Gentiles become of the one true Israel (Rom. 11:26), and are counted among the 12,000 numbered in each of the twelve tribes. -- Rev. 7:3-8

6.  To what period does “these days” refer (Jer. 31:33), after which the new covenant would be made?

  The period, “those days,” extended from the beginning of Israel’s desert wanderings through the ministry of Jesus.  “Those days” began when God found fault with Israel (Heb. 8:8).  Their acts of dis- obedience in the wilderness were so grievous and frequent as to be recalled by the simple expression, “as in the provocation” (Heb. 3:8, 15).  (See Ex. 16:2, 17:2, 32:1-29, Num. 11:1, 6-33, 13:1-14:39, Ezek.   20:14, 22, 44.)  Because the first covenant was not faultless, place was “sought   for  the  second” (Heb. 8:7).  Israel  frequently  “continued  not  in  My covenant” during the many centuries before Jeremiah prophesied of the new covenant, and God therefore “regarded them not” (Heb. 8:7-9).  But He kept His covenant, and visited them with necessary adversity, affliction, and punishment (Amos 3:2).  The years after Jeremiah were also part of “those days” mentioned by the prophet.  When the meaning of the prophecy is misunderstood, an opening is given to the mistaken idea that “those days” refer to the years during which the gospel has been preached.  And that precludes perception that the new covenant began to bless believers at Pentecost.

7.  Is Jesus alone the Mediator of the New Covenant?

  Yes.  There is no statement in Scripture that any but Jesus is Mediator of the New Covenant.  The Apostle Paul indicates clearly who is Mediator.  “For there is one God, also one Mediator of God and of man, a man Christ Jesus, the one having given Himself a ransom on behalf of all, the testimony in its own times” (1Tim. 2:5, 6) Marshall Interlinear).  It was the giving of himself as ransom for all mankind that enables him to be Mediator of God and of men.  He alone was the ransom; he alone is Mediator.  No other person or entity is mentioned in Scripture as sharing that office with Jesus.

  Inasmuch as the better covenant “has been enacted” (Heb. 8:6 NAS), it is evident that Christ Jesus functions as its Mediator, for without a mediator there could be no new covenant and it could not have been enacted.  The Holy Spirit’s testimony to us regarding the writing of God’s law in our hearts (Heb. 10:15-18), which writing affirms the remission of our sins, is further assurance that Jesus is Mediator of the new covenant.

  Moses alone was Mediator of the Old Covenant (Gal. 3:19), and, as interpreted by the Apostle Peter soon after the day of Pentecost, Jesus Christ is the greater than Moses prophesied of in Deut. 18:15, 18.  He quoted that prophecy to the Jews in Jerusalem, together with its warning that “every soul, which would not hear (so as to believe and obey) that prophet would be destroyed (Strong #1842, “to extirpate,” which Webster defines:  “to pluck up by the...root; to eradicate”) from the people (of God, being not worthy to enjoy fellowship with God’s true Israel).”  The Apostle affirmed that all

prophets from Samuel on who had spoken, had all “foretold of these days,” the days of Peter’s time; and that “God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you in turning every one of you from your iniquities”  (Acts 3:22-26).

8.  What blessings do those in the New Covenant enjoy?

Those in relationship with God in the new covenant have peace with God, sanctification, inner joy, and all the other spiritual blessings as “new creatures” in Christ Jesus (2 Cor. 5:15, 16). Such have come to God through the name and power of Jesus.  “But you have come ... to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:22-24 NAS). This reference to the antitypical covenant and its ratification is drawn from the typical arrangement.  After Israel heard and accepted “every commandment of the law,” it was the “blood of the covenant” -- animal blood literally sprinkled on “all the people” -- that brought them in covenant with God at Sinai under Moses, its mediator (Exod. 24:8; Heb. 9:19,20). But there is no need that blood be literally sprinkled upon those who spiritually “eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood,” and who receive life thereby; who hear the instructions and endeavor to obey God’s will (John 6:53). Their hearts are sprinkled from a consciousness of evil as they trust and obey. (See 1 Pet. 1:2 and Heb. 10:22.)

Hebrews 9:14, 15 verify a blessing received by Jews who had already come into the new covenant. “ How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!  For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance -- now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.” Certain elements in the Greek text not disclosed by that NIV rendering are seen in the Marshall Interlinear translation: “By how much more the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished to God, will cleanse the conscience of us from dead works to serve the living God. And therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so as death (his death) having occurred for redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, the ones having been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”  That blessing is also for the Gentiles, none of whom transgressed the first covenant because never having been in it, but all of  whom nonetheless missed the mark of keeping God’s law.

9. Why does Heb. 12:24 use a different Greek word for “new” than used elsewhere in the New Testament and in the Septuagint (Greek O. T.) for “new” covenant?

To indicate that the new covenant was then in effect!  The Greek kainos, Strong’s #2537  -- “that which is unaccustomed or unused” .... “new as to form or quality, of different nature from what is contrasted as old” (Vine’s) was written of the new covenant when prophecy of it was made, quoted, or referred to. (See Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20; 1 Cor. 11:25; 2 Cor. 3:6; Heb. 8:8,13 & 9:15; Jer. 31:31.) God promised an arrangement “of a different nature” than the covenant which had been made old and was vanishing away. Kainos denoted the difference between the old and new -- a new covenant of a different nature than the old.

But when the writer in Heb. 12:22-24 (NAS) encouraged their spiritual relationships, the promise had become reality. Thus he wrote that “you have come ... to Jesus, the mediator of a new (Greek neos, Strong’s #3501; “new in respect of time, that which is recent” -- Vine’s) covenant.”  It is fitting, in this last appearance in the Bible of the words “new covenant,”  that those believers were instructed that they had come to a new, recently-made covenant for forgiveness of sins, mercy to their unrighteousness, and everlasting life.

10. Do disciples have a part in the new covenant other than being blessed in it?

Yes, indeed! Though they cannot be its mediator, they can surely be ministers of the new covenant. The glory of its reality is due to God who planned it, and to Christ whose blood has ratified the new covenant.  Paul said of believers that it is “being manifested that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, having been inscribed not by ink but by the spirit of the living God, not in stony tables but in tables which are fleshly hearts...the competence of us is God, who also made us competent ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit, for the letter kills, but the spirit makes alive” (2 Cor. 3:3,6).  “And all things are of God, the one having reconciled us to Himself through Christ and having given to us the ministry of reconciliation...” (See 2 Cor. 5:18-20 Marshall’s Interlinear.)

                   G. Rice