“A New Heart”
Is the New Covenant a replacement of the ten commandments?
Is the New Covenant for Christians, while the Old Covenant is for Jews?
What is the truth about the covenants?
[This is Part 11 of the series Did Jesus Christ Abolish the Law?]
Now, the actual text of the New Covenant may be found in Jeremiah 31:31-34:
Jer 31:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
Jer 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts [mind, as Paul rendered it in Heb.8:10], and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Jer 31:34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
This is the exact same scripture quoted by the apostle Paul in Hebrews 8:8-12. From the above scripture the following basic facts about the New Covenant, among others, are well established:
- The New Covenant is made with the House of Judah and the House of Israel.
- God’s laws will be written in our [man's] hearts and mind.
The common teaching is that the New Covenant makes God’s laws obsolete. But as we see in the text of the New Covenant, God’s law will be written in our hearts. So instead of being forgotten and set aside [or abolished], God’s law will be etched right into the very core of our consciousness – our heart and mind!
Some “Christians” brag that they have the New Covenant, whereas Israel had the Old. Little do they realize that the New Covenant, like the so-called “Old Covenant”, is made with the Israelites also –- NOT with Gentiles. God never made covenant with Gentiles.
You might wonder: Is God a respecter of person or race?
Paul says NO! [Rom.2:11]
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT
Whether you like it or not, Israel figures prominently and primarily in God’s covenants and overall plan for mankind. This prominence has nothing to do with national superiority – racial or otherwise. It all started with Abram [later renamed Abraham].
Before Abraham and almost as soon as Adam and Eve were created, mankind progressively drifted away from God. By the time of Noah, it had reached the point where man’s wickedness so “grieved” God [Gen.6:6], He decided to destroy all mankind with flood, except Noah and his family [v.8-18]. From Noah’s family the earth re-populated. But soon man began to stray away from God, again.
You ought to wonder how God could judge man of “wickedness” IF He had not shown him what wickedness means, through some law or standard.
Anyway, there was one man whom God took notice of. That man of course was Abraham.
Why Abraham? What’s so special about Abraham?
Gen 12:2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
Gen 12:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
Gen 12:4 So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto [Heb. dabar=commanded, bid] him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
Here God instructed Abram to get out of his hometown and go to another land. God promised to make Abram a great nation and that through him the families of earth “shall be blessed”. Notice in verse 4 that Abram, without quibble, simply obeyed God.
Now let’s read Gen. 15:1-6 in our Bible. To save space I will just summarize it here. Here God promised to give Abram a son – which Abram knew was highly improbable considering he was then 100 years old while his wife Sarah was 90 years old. But despite that, Abram simply believed God. Notice what God says of Abraham’s response:
Notice the words: He [God] counted it to him for righteousness. And so as we already know, God fulfilled His promise with the birth of Isaac (Genesis 21).
Now in Genesis 22:1-18, God tempted [tested] Abram by instructing him to offer Isaac as sacrifice. This must have confused and caused agony and doubt in Abraham. But Abraham simply loved and trusted God, he was willing to give up anything – even his only son – just to obey God. Obviously Abraham trusted that God will sort out things and so he obeyed. Of course we know God stopped Abraham from harming his son.
Gen 22:17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;
Gen 22:18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
At this point, Abraham had demonstrated to God that he would obey – no matter what. So God by an oath made the following unconditional promises to Abraham:
- blessing [physical or otherwise] for Abraham and his descendants
- a seed in whom all the nations of the earth will be blessed
In Genesis 15 we read of the vast tract of land that God had actually given to Abraham:
If you looked at the Middle East map, you will see that that is quite a vast piece of land, that stretches from eastern Egypt, through Sinai Peninsula and Saudi Arabia all the way to Central Iraq! We know that God’s promise cannot be broken, so that gives us an idea about what the future will be for Israel and the Middle East region.
Now, what else did Abraham obey that made God decide to make His promises unconditional?
Gen 26:5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
Here we see that Abraham kept God’s commandments, statutes and laws – long before Moses! Mind you that this was about 430 years before the “Law of Moses” was given to Israel – which only shows that God’s laws and commandments dates back to Abraham or earlier as a matter of fact.
To sum it up, God saw two outstanding qualities in Abraham that made Him establish such a special relationship with Abraham: FAITH and OBEDIENCE!
The apostle James said faith and works [or obedience] go hand in hand. Without obedience faith is dead, or vice versa. Abraham showed his faith by his obedience to God’s laws and instructions (James 2:18-23).
COVENANT CONFIRMED TO ISAAC, JACOB AND THE NATION ISRAEL
Now, the following scriptures relates how God confirmed the Covenant and passed the promises on to Isaac and Jacob:
To Isaac:
Gen 26:2 And the LORD appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of:
Gen 26:3 Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father;
Gen 26:4 And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;
Gen 26:5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.
To Jacob:
Gen 28:2 Arise, go to Padanaram, to the house of Bethuel thy mother’s father; and take thee a wife from thence of the daughters of Laban thy mother’s brother.
Gen 28:3 And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people;
Gen 28:4 And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.
Now this same Abrahamic Covenant would later be confirmed with the nation Israel. Notice:
Exo 2:24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
Exo 6:5 And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant.
Exo 6:6 Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:
Exo 6:7 And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God, which bringeth you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
Exo 6:8 And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the LORD.
To summarize what we have covered so far:
- God initiated a covenant with Abraham.
- In this covenant God promised blessing to Abraham and his seed. God promised to make his seed a great nation and to bless them materially. The second promise is to bless all nations through his Seed [which Paul says is Christ - Gal.3:16].
- This covenant was confirmed and passed on to Isaac and then to Jacob.
- This same covenant was confirmed with the children of Israel.
Has this covenant been abolished?
1Ch 16:16 Even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac;
1Ch 16:17 And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant,
Note the phrase “a thousand generations”. There had hardly been a hundred generations since God made the covenant with Abraham. The fact is, God says it is an everlasting covenant [verse 17]!
God is not fickle-minded (James 1:17, Mal.3:6). He did not suddenly change His mind after declaring the Abrahamic covenant to be an “everlasting covenant”.
As pointed out earlier, the new covenant was made only with the Israelites – NOT with the Gentiles. The Gentiles, as Paul said were strangers from the covenants, without promises, without hope, without Christ and without God:
Eph 2:12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
But, Paul says, through the blood of Christ, the Gentiles and the Israelites were “made nigh” or brought close together [spiritually speaking, that is]. The Gentiles now had become fellow-citizens with the saints and household of God, through Christ.
Eph 2:14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
…
Eph 2:19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
In effect the Gentiles had been absorbed into the spiritual nation Israel. Paul actually used the word “graffed” or “grafted” in Rom.11:17-24 in describing the Gentiles’ inclusion into Israel. We Gentiles are merely grafted into Israel. Through Christ we become Abraham’s children. Notice:
This clearly is the FULFILMENT of God’s promise to Abraham to “bless all nations” through his seed – which is Jesus Christ!
SACRIFICES AND RITUALS IN OLD COVENANT
God’s covenant with the ancient nation Israel came with rituals and sacrifices – which were mere images of the reality – which, as I have shown in the post titled Which Old Testament Laws Should we Keep Today? were reminders of the promised redemptive work of the coming Messiah. The Holy Spirit itself was never promised to be given during the Sinai covenant, because the Holy Spirit can only come after Christ comes and departs (John 16:7).
In other words, the spiritual promises to Abraham were not intended to be fulfilled in the so-called Old Covenant with the nation Israel because the real Messiah, Christ – the focus of much of the ritualistic law and symbolism – was YET to come. This ritualistic law served as “schoolmaster” that pointed and led God’s people to Christ – as Paul illustrated figuratively in Galatians 3 [See The Much Misunderstood Law in Galatians]. But unfortunately, the Israelites as Paul said had become “dull of hearing” [Heb.5:11]. They failed to recognize Christ and His teaching when He came, because they did not believe Moses in the first place [John 5:46-47]!
God did not do a “trial-and-error” experiment. He had planned how He would handle His supreme but fragile creation – man – to accomplish His goal which is to make man in His image and likeness [Gen. 1:26]. [Read the post titled What is the Purpose of Life?].
Now think about this: The “New Covenant” promises no “new laws” but RATHER a “new heart” and the writing of the same old law in our heart and mind! It also promises forgiveness of sin, which really is grace. All these is made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit! Notice:
Eze 36:27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
That is what the New Covenant is all about: The change of carnal man that was hostile to God and His laws TO a “new man” who will walk in God’s law.
CONCLUSION
Finally, to put it simply, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant are nothing more than reiterations/confirmation of the covenant that God made with Abraham. The difference between the Old and the New results from the timing of the coming of the Messiah and of the Holy Spirit. The sacrifices, divers washings, rituals and Levitical priesthood served as temporary substitute for Christ’s redemptive work and the “sanctifying” and transforming power of the Spirit. These substitutes had become unnecessary once Christ and the Spirit had come. The Spirit made possible for us to have a “new heart” and mind [Ezek 36:26-27] on which God can now His law [Heb. 8:10].
Sabbath and the ten commandments are NOT substitutes for Christ and the Spirit. The transgression of the commandments was the reason why “the law” – the temporary ritualistic law – was added 430 years after Abraham [Gal 3:19]. The temporary law served to instill on God’s people the importance of obedience to God and His commandments and the need for a Redeemer. God’s covenant with Abraham is about obedience to God and His law. The Old and New Covenant are by no means different – it is also about obedience!
How different that is from the popular teaching that perverted the gospel of Christ!
May God help and guide you to understand His wonderful way.
