September 2025

“‘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.  ‘This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord.  ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.  No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,’ declares the Lord.  ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more’” (Jeremiah 31:31-34 NIV).

In light of our sermon series on Daniel, with all of its apocalyptic visions and the like (which we’ll be diving deep into in the coming weeks), I have been finding myself thinking more and more about the New Covenant that was prophesied in the book of Jeremiah.  So, I thought it a good idea to share with you all a bit about this New Covenant in this month’s newsletter.

And this passage from Jeremiah is extremely important because it is one of the most theologically significant passages in the entire Bible.  It is this covenant that Paul is pointing to when he quotes Christ’s words at the Last Supper, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood…” (1 Cor. 11:25).  It is also a prophecy that has generated some debate within Christianity as it is used by people known as dispensationalists to support their views that Israel and the church are two distinct peoples.  Many dispensationalists argue that Jeremiah's prophecy applies principally, if not exclusively, to the church and that the major difference between the Old and New Covenants is that God dealt with his people on an external, physical level in the Old Covenant; but he deals with his people on an internal, spiritual level in the New Covenant.  Essentially, this means that the dispensationalist believes that the Israelites in the Old Testament were justified, meaning “saved,” through their works, whereas Christians from the time of Jesus onward are justified by grace through faith in Him.

Covenant theologians, however, take exception to this argument because we understand the continuous relationship of redemptive history and God’s covenantal relationship with His people; we don’t see God dealing with His people in distinctly different ways in the Old and New Covenants.  Seminary professor and covenant theologian Michael Horton explains it like this, “No Israelite was ever justified by works, but the nation had to keep the conditions of the law in order to remain in possession of the earthly type of the heavenly rest.  The prophets, culminating in John the Baptist and Jesus, brought the ax to the root of the tree: the earthly Jerusalem is now in bondage with her children.  Only in Christ can anyone, Jew or Gentile, be a child of Abraham.”  So, it can be seen that the position of covenant theology is that the Old Covenant with Israel was still based upon grace but, because of the people’s inability to keep it, it no longer worked and needed to be replaced; so God established the New Covenant with His people through Christ.

The New Covenant prophecy in the book of Jeremiah was written as a promise from God to His people for a new covenant that is a continuation of His previous covenants, but in a different form; it is the divinely promised answer to the perennial problem of Israel’s hard-hearted rebellion against the LORD.  This covenantal relationship (“I will be their God and they will be my people” in v. 33) was established through God writing the law on their hearts; and the result of the covenantal relationship is that everyone in this relationship with God, from the least to the greatest, will know the LORD.

But the significance of the New Covenant is that it is the Kingdom of Christ, ushered in through His person and work, in which His people come to fully realize redemption.  The future redemption promised by God through the New Covenant prophecy in Jeremiah dawned in the ministry of Jesus and will be brought to its ultimate fulfillment in His second coming. Jeremiah’s promise to the house of Israel and the house of Judah is applied to both Jewish and Gentile Christians, who comprise the whole church.  Through Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection, and through the continuing work of the Holy Spirit, the church is already experiencing the Kingdom of God; we are already citizens of that Kingdom.  However, because Christ has not yet returned to completely defeat evil and fully usher in the Kingdom in all of its glory, we are still waiting and anticipating the day that it will come to fruition and our place in the new heavens and new earth will finally be fully realized.

In the end, we can certainly say that the New Covenant is a better covenant because it is centered around Christ rather than Sinai; it’s fused together around the Son and is enacted on better promises; but, this renewed, better Covenant, while affecting and ordering our world today, will not achieve its fulfillment until Christ ushers in the new heavens and the new earth.   Biblical scholar Walter Kaiser sums all of this up quite succinctly when he writes, “With the death and resurrection of Christ the last days have already begun ( Heb. 1:1 ), and God's grand plan as announced in the Abrahamic-Davidic-New Covenant continues to shape history, culture and theology.”  And all of this is done as we wait with anticipation for the day of our Lord’s return.

May the blessings of the Father and the peace of the Son be with you,

Pastor Keith