Old Covenant vs. New Covenant

“The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord. “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel on that day,” says the Lord. “I will put My instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know Me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NLT)

Jeremiah’s prophecy has provisional application for the returning exiles but ultimately his prophecy looks far beyond to Israel’s ultimate gathering under the new covenant (“testament”) (see Jeremiah 31:31–34; see also Jeremiah 32:38-40). A covenant is an agreement between God and His people. Another word for covenant is “testament.” The essence of the old covenant is the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were signed by the finger of God Himself on stone tablets in the Old Testament (see Exodus 23:3-4; Exodus 31:18; Exodus 32:15-16, 19; Exodus 34:1-4, 27-29; Deuteronomy 4:13; Deuteronomy 5:22).  The remaining laws, regulations, and decrees of the old covenant were the details. The old covenant made clear that these rules and regulations were meant to penetrate a person’s heart. Unless the law became part of a person’s inner attitude, it would probable make no different.

The new covenant is the zenith of God’s covenant-making with Israel. The establishment of this new covenant was Jesus Christ (Hebrews 8:6). Both the new covenant and the old covenant were based upon love, particularly wholehearted love for God and love for others (see Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Deuteronomy 10:12; Deuteronomy 12:28; Mark 12:28-34; John 3:16; Romans 13:8-10). The old covenant repeatedly emphasized we are to wholeheartedly love and trust God and be faithful (fidelity) to Him as the only true God. We were to intimately and personally share our lives with God. Examples of this intimate heart relationship were seen in Abraham (Nehemiah 9:7-8) and David (1 Samuel 13:14; Psalm 86:11; Acts 13:22). Later, God sent the prophets Elijah, Hosea, Ezekiel, and many others to compare our covenant relationship with God as a marriage union. In fact, Jesus quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 when He gave the most important commandment as “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” (see Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30).

In the Holy Bible, love is more than a feeling. Love is a decision to serve another person’s interest and does not harm to others. Godly loves seeks all goodness, justice, patience, forgiveness, kindness, righteousness, and mercy towards others as these are the very qualities of God (see Exodus 34:6-7; Nehemiah 9:17). God is “compassionate and gracious . . .  slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7, NIV). God has always required these internal motives or heart actions in both the old and new covenants (e.g., see Isaiah 1:10-20; Isaiah 66:3; Jeremiah 6:20; Jeremiah 7:22-23; Hosea 6:6; Amos 5:21; Micah 6:6-8; Matthew 23:23-26). Both the old and new covenant expressed God’s love for His people (see Deuteronomy 4:37; Deuteronomy 7:7-8; Deuteronomy 10:15; Deuteronomy 23:5). In return, God asked for obedience to Him based upon our faithful love, not on a sense of duty. God wanted His people to faithfully love Him and cling to Him. God wanted not just an outward conformity, but an obedience that comes from our hearts. The new covenant would create a singleness of heart and action to faithfully love God above all else (see also Matthew 6:33).

“And I (God) will give them one heart and one purpose: to worship Me forever, for their own good and for the good of all their descendants. And I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good for them. I will put a desire in their hearts to worship Me, and they will never leave Me. I will find joy doing good for them and will faithfully and wholeheartedly replant them in this land.” Jeremiah 32:39-41 (NLT)

The old covenant stated directly, “the Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees (laws) and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive” (Deuteronomy 6:24). In other words, the old covenant laws were given for the Israelites own well-being and goodness. God wanted to protect the people from the harm that comes from idolatry, neglect of worship, lying, adultery, greed (covetousness), murder, and breakdown of the family (see Exodus 20; Deuteronomy 5). Moses and many other Old Testament prophets repeatedly warned God’s people to place God’s laws upon their hearts and teach them to their children (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) that it would go well for them and their families (Deuteronomy 28). Finally, the prophet Jeremiah predicted that God would place these laws on His people’s hearts through His Holy Spirit (see Jeremiah 31:33-34 quoted at Hebrews 8:8-12). The old covenant was useful and God-given. But as Israel’s history proved, the old covenant did not have the power to transform peoples’ inner attitudes (heart) and their thinking. The apostle Paul amplified the contrast of the old covenant and the new covenant at 2 Corinthians 2:12-3:18. The new covenant came with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ fulfilled and completed the old covenant began at Mount Sinai (Matthew 5:17; Luke 24:27, 44-49). Jesus summarized the old covenant by commanding everyone to love God and to love each other as love summarized the entire old covenant (Matthew 22:34-40).   

Like the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants (Abraham 15:9-21; 2 Samuel 7:5-16), the new covenant foretold by the prophet Jeremiah is unconditional (or absolute) (Jeremiah 31:31-34). This new covenant rendered obsolete (outdated) the old Mount Sinai covenant given to Moses. This old covenant served as the manual of procedure for carrying out the moral, civil, and ceremonial regulations to Israel in the pre-Christian era (Deuteronomy 7:6–11; Hebrews 8:7–13). But this old covenant with its many rituals, feasts, and rituals were just a copy or mere shadows expressing the reality to come in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the original and He revealed once and for all the meaning of the old covenant sacrifices, laws, and regulations. Because of Jesus Christ, sacrifices are no longer necessary (Hebrews 10:11-12), and God’s laws are now written in our minds and hearts of His faithful people (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

Nevertheless, some features of the old covenant (“testament”) are carried over into the new covenant. First of all, the new covenant stressed the importance of the unchangeable principles of God’s law. However, these principles are now written not on stone tablets but on the hearts of God’s people. In other words, God’s new covenant will become part of the people’s inward code for living, and will conform in all respects to the moral law of the Holy Scriptures. God Himself would internally give His people the desire and heart to obey His laws through His Holy Spirit. Accordingly, the ideal that the old covenant called in external commandments will now be internalized inside the heart under the terms of the new covenant. Second, with the establishment of the old covenant at Mount Sinai, Israel had become nationally God’s people (Exodus 6:6-9; Exodus 19:5-6). As such, the people of Israel were to be a wholeheartedly faithful and obedient people that reflected God’s standards in their daily lives (Deuteronomy 26:16–19). Under the new covenant, the people had a closer intimacy to God than under the old covenant as a full and living experience. Even more, not just Israelites were God’s people but all believers (Jews and Gentiles) who wholeheartedly love and trust God are called under the new covenant God’s people (Jeremiah 31:34; see also Galatians 3:6–9, 26–29). By faith in Jesus Christ, Gentile (non-Jews) also became the spiritual seed of Abraham and members of the family of God (Galatians 3:26–29; Ephesians 2:1–3:6).  Third, the new covenant has an added feature of forgiveness. God forgave people of their sins under the administration of the Mount Sinai covenant (Exodus 34:6-7; Numbers 14:18; Psalm 86:15; Joel 2:13). However, under the new covenant, God will remember our sins no more (past, present, and future). God’s people now have full and continuous forgiveness of sin (1 John 1:8-9). Under the old covenant, God’s people approached God in their worship experience through human priests, mediators, or prophets (e.g., Exodus 20:19). But with the new covenant, God’s people now have direct access to God by faith because of the finished redemption by Jesus Christ on Calvary’s Cross (Hebrews 4:14-16; see also 1 Timothy 2:5-6; Titus 3:5–7). The new covenant rests on Jesus Christ’s atonement (or punishment) for humankind’s sins on the Cross (see Matthew 26:27-28; Hebrews 8:10–12).

In essence, the new covenant is now operative and causes God’s law to be written on the hearts of His people. The indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit within a person’s heart causes full provision for obedience to God’s laws. This obedience causes faithful and victorious living (see Titus 2:11-14; Titus 3:4-7). Obedience to God’s laws do not earn anyone salvation (Ephesians 2:8-10). Rather, obedience to God’s laws is a natural response from a person who has experienced God’s forgiveness and love found in Jesus Christ (See 2 Corinthians 3:6). When we genuinely turn our whole hearts to God, then God’s Holy Spirit creates within us a new heart and a desire to faithfully obey Him (see John 3:5-16). Nevertheless, the full recognition of the new covenant awaits the second coming (advent) of Jesus Christ (Revelation 21:1-9). 

References

KJV Bible Commentary. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1994.

Life Application Study Bible. Carol Streams, IL: Tyndale House Pub., 2005.

New Student Bible. New York: Zondervan,1992.

Zondervan NIV Study Bible. New York: Zondervan, 2008.

Douglas, J.D. and Tenney, Merrill. NIV Compact Dictionary of the Bible. Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan Publishing House, 1989.