The New Covenant

Most parents will tell you that there is one universal truth when it comes to their toddlers. They make a mess. I read about an ingenious trick that a very clever mum came up with when her three year old, Lucas, thought that he was the next Rembrandt and was drawing absolutely on every surface available at home. You've probably been there yourself. My little brother was like that as well.

And these little Rembrandts create all sorts of unwanted pieces of modern art. Now Lucas's mum had a great idea where she gave Lucas, instead of real paint, she gave him a bucket of water with which he could paint on the driveway. Now Lucas could then go with his paintbrush and paint and draw and scribble with the paintbrush as much as he wanted, and as the concrete turned darker, you know, and you saw the lines in the pictures and whatnot that he was painting. But of course, nothing really changed, which was great for mum and dad. Sooner or later that concrete dries up and everything turns back the way it was.

Now, as we've been working through the covenants, we've seen how these giant promises of God actually carry the narrative of the Bible on. It moves on from generation to generation, from big Bible character hero to the next Bible hero. Now every now and then, there is a dramatic intervention, right, where God steps in and He makes another promise, a covenant agreement between God and His people or God and an individual, but it is like painting on concrete. Sooner or later, that water dries up and it just goes back to the way it was before. Last week, we actually left Israel at the end of the Old Testament, and they had lost absolutely everything.

The people are scattered in exile. The land is in ruins, and God's presence has left the temple as the temple itself is destroyed. Many people of that time, and you can imagine why, many people thought this was the end. Perhaps all the covenant curses that God had warned Israel about would remain forever. How many chances did Israel not have?

They asked themselves. How many opportunities did God not give to Israel to be obedient, to stay in that relationship with Him? Time and again, they failed and God would rescue them. Time and again, things would just slip back, however. It is that that story, that history is an indictment on our fickleness as human beings.

But this time, this time, things were really bad. Things were really bad. And then, like the glimmer of the sun on a winter's morning, a single solitary voice starts spreading throughout the countryside. A solitary letter gets passed around the exiles with shaking hands, a message of hope. Prophet Jeremiah writes this: "The days are coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke My covenant though I was a husband to them," declares the Lord. The word "new covenant" starts spreading. It's not something like the old one that we've known before. This one is something that is completely different. The old one was broken again and again and yet, this new one is somehow not new as in brand new.

There is continuity. The prophet Ezekiel says this of this new development, of this new covenant. "I will remember. This is God saying, I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth. When Israel was a young fledgling nation, I will remember that covenant, but I will establish an everlasting covenant with you."

Ezekiel 16:60. This covenant is one that will go on forever, everlasting, the final instalment. It's a covenant that remembers the promise that was made in Israel's history to Israel. It is not broken by God, but this new instalment has new implications, and its roots are grounded in the covenants that have gone before. And therefore, it is a continuation of the covenant of grace started with Abraham.

So it's a new covenant, but it's not new. Now, this may seem weird, but in fact, we do have some framework for understanding that even in our English, the word for "new" that we use can have two different meanings, can't it? We can say something is new and you can use it in the idea of "I've built a new house," which means I have created something that never existed before. I bought an empty block of land and there is something completely new on top of it. Or you could say, actually this applies to Moray and Annalise.

Are they here this morning? They are. This applies to you guys perfectly. So they've just built a house, a brand new house. But you could also say of Mireille:

Mireille is a brand new man since he married Annalise. What does that mean? It doesn't mean that all of a sudden he just poofs into existence and there he is. No. It means that he has been dramatically changed for the better.

Nod your head, Mireille. Yes. This second sense is actually what is being referred to and is grammatically used in these instances in Ezekiel and Jeremiah. It is a word which means renewing. A renewing.

And again, like we've seen in the past, there are blessings, the same blessings of the covenant of grace. Blessings of what were they? Those three things? People, place, and presence. People, place, and presence.

They're all associated with this new covenant. Let's have a look. Ezekiel spends three chapters, chapters 34, 35, 36, and probably 37 you could say, on these promises, on these blessings. People: Ezekiel 36 says, "I will multiply man and beast and they shall multiply and be fruitful."

What had happened to Israel before this? They were slaughtered, destroyed. God says, this new covenant will multiply man and beast. They will be fruitful. In fact, in the next chapter, God makes Ezekiel take a stick and write Judah on it.

Ezekiel had to do a lot of these very physical prophecies. So anyway, this one time he has to write the word Judah on a stick. Then he has to take another stick and he has to write the name Israel on it. These two sticks. And then he has to bind them together with rope.

He ties these two together and it is a prophecy representing the two divided kingdoms, the North and the South, Israel and Judah, as becoming one again. This is the blessing of this new covenant. There will be one united people of God. Ezekiel 36:34-35 says, "There will be a place and the land that was desolate shall be tilled instead of being the desolation that it was in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, this land that was desolate has become like the Garden of Eden.

And the waste and desolate and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited." Israel will once again be a land of plenty, so fruitful that it can be compared to the Garden of Eden. And then finally, the third blessing of this covenant is God's presence. Ezekiel 36:27-28, God says, "I will put My spirit within you. My spirit within you.

This is revolutionary and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be My people and I will be your God. I will be your God." Now there are hints already that this time, and you can see it from here, God's presence is going to be different. God's presence will be different than before.

During the days of the previous covenants, the time of the temple or the tabernacle before God's glory cloud, remember, dwelt in that one singular place in Jerusalem. But now, God says, even in the sort of the mirror of this in Jeremiah 31, that famous new covenant passage, this is what God says: "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the Lord. "I will put My law within them. I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be My people.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbour and each his brother saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me. From the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. "For I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more." God is now going to dwell in the hearts of His people. God's law, God's will, God's mind is going to be on people's consciences.

And people are going to know, people are going to respond and interact with God intimately from the greatest to the least. No longer will there be these heroes like the Davids and the Moseses and the Ezekiels and the prophets. Now God is creating a people of priests and kings and prophets from the least to the greatest. And then remarkably, this is tied with something surprising. Verse 34, that last sentence we see there.

"For, or because, I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Interesting. How many years passed from this? In fact, four hundred years. Now that is strange because it was also four hundred years between Abraham and Moses.

Remember that? God seems to work in four hundred year increments. If you think God needs to do things now, God's idea of patience is a lot longer than ours. Four hundred years pass. From the Old Testament prophets and then we come to the New Testament.

And the first book of the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew. And I want to ask you this question: How do you share personally or how do you begin to share the Gospel or the message of Jesus to your friends? Would you do it in this way? "Excuse me, friend. May I share the Gospel with you?

Well, there was this guy called Hezron who was the father of Ram. And Ram had a son called Amminadab. Now Amminadab grew up and he had a boy called Nashon. Now you won't believe this, but Nashon then also had a boy." You probably wouldn't start a Gospel message that way, but Matthew starts the account of the good news, a Gospel account, with a genealogy just like that. Have a look. Let's turn to it. Let's look at Matthew 1.

From the opening verse in Matthew chapter 1, Matthew calls Jesus "Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham."

And then he quotes or lists 42 generations beginning with Abraham, leading up to David, and then from David down to Jesus. Why? Because these are the fathers of the covenant promise. Abraham has given the special covenant, the covenant of grace. "You and your people will be a special nation, a nation I will use to bless the world.

To bless the nations of the world." Then under David, like we saw last week, the promise is of a covenant king to lead this special people. And remember how each of these covenants constantly had its view on the future. Remember way back even with Adam and Eve, there was an offspring that would crush the work of Satan that brought the downfall of mankind. Abraham has promised that his offspring would be this blessing to the nations.

David has promised, what does he promise? He's promised a king to come from him whose kingdom would last forever. And then in Matthew, four hundred years later, Matthew boldly proclaims he has arrived. The king, the offspring, the Satan crusher is here. If you look at another Gospel account there, the Gospel of Luke, he also begins with a genealogy.

Did you know that? But he begins not with Abraham, he goes right back to Adam and Eve. He goes back to Adam and Eve. Why? Because he is tracing the promise of the offspring that will crush Satan to Adam.

He is saying that Jesus is the new Adam. The Adam that no one could be except for Him. The perfect man. And he does it in a way that gives me goosebumps because he, a few chapters later, he portrays Jesus as, remember the temptation scene in the desert? And Satan comes and tempts Jesus.

What does he tempt him with? The same things he tempted Adam and Eve with. Power, rebellion, influence, knowledge. But this time, the perfect Adam resists. So Luke is saying, this is the guy.

This is the king. This is the new Adam. So Matthew and Luke and all the other Gospel writers, they go on to tell the message of Jesus, what he taught and what he did. And we see if we read this that Jesus is truly remarkable, but not until a very specific moment where Jesus himself indicates that he is a game changer, does it really, really take hold. In Luke 22, we find Jesus with his disciples in the upper room.

Remember Luke 23 is where the crucifixion happens? Luke 22. And it's the time of the Passover in the Jewish calendar. It's a time of remembering God's dramatic salvation of Israel that led up to the covenant of Sinai, the Mosaic covenant. Remember that?

The dramatic salvation that happened there where the law is given. And at this Passover feast, as his disciples are sitting around him, Jesus picks up a glass of wine in Luke 22:20 and he says, "This cup is poured out for you as the new covenant in My blood." Jesus says something similar about the bread that they are eating. "This bread is My body broken for you." Jesus, if you know your covenant theology and your covenant story, is declaring the days have now come that the prophets were foretelling.

"This is the new covenant I will be fulfilling. This is the new promise that is being made in My blood and it will be poured out for you." As we know what this means, the disciples couldn't have known at that point, but this is an indication of the cross which lay ahead the very next day. And what happens in this moment, however, at this Last Supper is that Jesus draws on this whole story. He just connects it all up and it ends there at the new covenant.

He draws it all up and he says and invokes the covenant with Abraham and says, "In My death, you will find the one through whom all the families of the earth will be blessed. In My death." Jesus invokes the covenant with Moses and Israel at Mount Sinai and declares, "I am the unblemished sacrifice that the law created to take away sin fully." Jesus is saying something new is happening. Now the book of Hebrews, oh, it's just a magnificent book and people that know me know that it's probably one of my favourite books in the Bible.

The book of Hebrews chapter 10 puts it this way. The author writes: "The law, that integral part of the old covenant, he says was only a shadow of the good things that were to come. He says, 'For this reason, it could never, through the same sacrifices, through the same system repeated year after year, make perfect those who drew near in worship to God.' He adds, 'It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins committed under the old covenant.' But says the writer, 'We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus once and for all.'

He says, 'Day after day, every priest stands and performs his religious duties. Again and again, he offers the same sacrifices which can never take away sins fully. But when this priest, when this Jesus had offered for all time one sacrifice, Him very His very self, He sat down at the right hand of God as conqueror. For by one sacrifice, He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.' He concludes:

'One sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.' The cross which Jesus faces the very next day is the moment when all the covenants, their contingencies, their promises, and even its curses are fulfilled. The covenant curses are being cut off from God and His presence, are being cut off from God's people. Hebrews 16, you have to check me here. It says that Jesus was taken out outside the camp.

His crucifixion outside of Jerusalem was a symbolism of His being cut off from the people. Presence, people, and place. He had no place to call His own. It all comes on Jesus. But through Him, the blessings come as well.

Let's look at that. The same old blessings. People: Jesus after His resurrection and before He ascends to the right hand of the Father, remember that, He sends His disciples into the nations with a great commission. "Make disciples," He says, "of who? All the nations.

All the nations. Teaching them everything I've told you, and behold, I am with you." The people of God will not remain there for just a little culture or race in the Middle East. God's people will spread over the whole world to the ends of the earth. The movement begins in the book of Acts with Gentiles in that region, but today we have Asian and African and Latin American and European, Jewish, Middle Eastern brothers and sisters worshipping the same God with the same Lord Jesus.

Remember what God said: "Your offspring will be a blessing to the nations." Place. There is no longer a geographic country that we could draw a circle around and say this is God's country. There is no holy land. Jerusalem is in heaven, Paul says.

He calls it the Jerusalem above in Galatians 4:26. In fact, Paul calls the church, Paul calls the church, the Israel of God in Galatians. The fulfilment of the covenant, in other words, is far too big to be limited geographically to one location. For God simply to reign from a physical Jerusalem is to miss the absolute universal scope of this good news. This is why Paul can say that if you are a Christian, you are seated in heaven.

Even now, seated in victory beside Christ who is at the right hand of the Father. Co-heirs and co-rulers with Christ in His kingdom. Amazing. What about presence? Well, we saw Jeremiah 31 and we saw what that was alluding to, didn't we?

We have God living in us. The closest He has ever been to His people, you could say. God living in His people. His spirit lives and resides in us. The spirit now comforts us.

It warms our heart as we're hearing these words and makes them and testifies to them being true. The spirit corrects us when we stray. He gives us these fruits to live by: hearts of joy and love and patience and kindness. His spirit guides us in all the ways and so none of us have to be told, "Know the Lord," because we will all know Him. From the greatest to the least.

So we see a picture, the same old covenant but fulfilled. Now we also realise that there is more to come and you can see that in the blessings particularly when the covenant is kept. The book of Revelation tells us that there is a moment when this final covenant is fully instituted. A new heaven and a new earth arrives. A new Jerusalem comes down from heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

John says, and in this new existence there is no sin and there is no brokenness and every tear is wiped away. A day is coming when that final sentence is written in God's redemption story and a full stop is added. Added. When Christ returns to complete the kingdom. And people and paradise and presence will be fully and finally established as it was with Adam and Eve.

The story has come full circle, but it's even better because we will be guaranteed that it will continue perfectly forever. So what does this understanding, what does this amazing covenant understanding mean for us this morning? How does it influence our life? Well, and I hope, of course, it makes us thankful. It makes us so, so incredibly grateful.

What a story. What a God we have. But there's also some, I think, some direct implications if we understand this message. This message of the Gospel, of the new covenant established through the blood of Jesus Christ. The first thing is that it leads us into paradoxical obedience.

Paradoxical obedience. What does that mean? Well, before the new covenant and apart from God's grace working in our lives even today, so people that don't know God yet, before the covenant, we see Israel wrestling with these covenant blessings and curses. You see them falling into two errors. Firstly, they believe that God's blessings are conditional, so they try their hardest to earn God's favour and they destroy themselves in that process.

They destroy themselves and other people. That is where that legalism, that pain, that frustration comes in. On the other side, they look at God's blessings as unconditional, as a given. They don't even need God. They go on with their life believing that in the end, God is good or their life is good and they don't take obedience or faithfulness to Him seriously.

That's exactly the same errors we can make today. But when we understand that Jesus Christ fulfilled the conditions of the covenant Himself, perfectly keeping the law and then paying for our penalty for not having kept it, we understand that we are loved unconditionally. Unconditionally. And we begin looking at life differently.

We look at God's law. We look at God's will for our life and say, "I should take these things seriously. I should love these things that God loves. Why? Because my precious Saviour loved these things Himself, but He also died in order that I fulfil them.

These things are important to my God." But and so I will try with all my heart to obey but if I fail and I will fail, I know that because Jesus perfectly kept these commands and because He paid the penalty for my inability to keep them, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So if you understand the Gospel in this way, our obedience becomes a way of saying thanks to God and becoming like Jesus. But it leads us the second thing. It leads us to absolute trust and peace as well.

When Jesus Christ calls you into a covenant relationship, He is saying, "I want to be your God, and I want you to be My people. I want to come into a binding, intimate relationship with you." And when you understand that God is a covenant-keeping God, we don't have to believe in this sentimental, gooey, pie in the sky sort of God. We have a God who is real. We have a God who is committed to us.

A God who has taken the plunge of love. And He says to us this morning, "I have already made this relationship possible. Come to Me." That gives us so much trust. And then finally, it leads to a deep community of believers.

You see, and this is perhaps the most controversial, modern spirituality gives us an airy-fairy god. And anything you want him to be God. This means I can have a God that no one else knows or understands in the way that I do. It's just me and God, an individualistic God. But this also leads to a dramatic breakdown in fellowship with other believers.

Doesn't it? Just logically it does. Because this is mine. And you may have another one, another God, but and that's yours. But covenant theology gives us a crunchy God, a visceral God, a God that's real, a God that fights for His people in time and in space.

A God involved with people. A God involved with politics. A God involved in the cut and thrust of life. Our God is a God who pursued His people at the speed of light. A warrior who refused to give up the fight.

And so we are a people that have been brought together by this same God and we all worship this same God together. And so friends, we are bound in blood in this church. You will never escape me. You will never escape me. You better get used to it, but you'll be spending eternity with me.

So what we do as a church then, what we do together, how we invest in one another's life is not meaningless. It is not something we do just to pass the time until we move on to another church or move away or whatever. The covenant leads to deep and lasting connections between all of us because we are God's people. In conclusion, we see the coming of Jesus, His death and His resurrection, not as water painting over a bit of dry concrete that just dries up and stays the same afterwards. But our Lord painted with brilliant bright colours over the deepest and bleakest and darkest background.

This picture is one that we were always created to experience and know. And friends, you now have the opportunity to experience it. You've now been told about it. If you don't know Christ, if you don't know the Saviour today, if you haven't placed your faith in Him, please do so today. Don't let it go by.

Put your trust in Him. He is a crunchy God, a God you may know personally who has pursued you relentlessly. And for those of us who do know Him and are just warmed again by His love, live in grateful obedience to Him. Give your heart to Him because He has your best interest at heart. Let's pray.

Father, we give you thanks first and foremostly for what you have done for us. We thank you, oh God, our great protector and Lord, that you have won for us a victory we could never win. And Lord, we would never have come up with this story ourselves. How humiliating, how very humbling to see how often we failed, and how patient You were, how long suffering You were to keep trying. But wow, when we step back and see why, You knew all along we could never do it.

And You made a plan before the beginning of the earth, before the foundations of the planet were laid to send Jesus for us. And so Lord we take up this new covenant with both hands and we draw it as deep into our hearts as possible because You have made this available to us. And Lord when we do, we have these amazing promises that we will not have to be taught to know the Lord, we will know Him. And no person will have to say to his brother or sister, "Understand God in this way or live a life in this way," because we will all be taught, we will all be grown and matured by You. Thank you for the spirit that is at work in our lives.

Thank you for the spirit that gives life and joy. Help us, Lord, to keep in step with Him. Father, thank you that we may come again to experience this, to know this to be true, and to put our trust and our faith in you. In Jesus name we thank you. Amen.