“The ministry Jesus has received is as superior to the Levitical priests as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the Old one, since the New Covenant is established on better promises.” (Hebrews 8:6)
Have you ever noticed that our Bible is divided into two parts? We call them the Old Testament and the New Testament. Now these “Testaments” actually refer to two covenants – a ‘covenant,’ being a sacred contract between God and humanity. The “Old Covenant” refers to that covenant which God made with Israel through Moses at Mount Sinai. The prophet Jeremiah identifies the “Old” as “the covenant which I made with the fathers when I took them out of Egypt,” i.e. the Sinai Covenant which included all 613 commandments of the Law. Under this covenant, God blessed His people if they obeyed His Law and cursed them if they disobeyed (Deuteronomy 28).
Well, if you read through the Old Testament, you’ll discover that Israel repeatedly failed to obey God’s commandments. God ultimately punished the nation for their disobedience by sending His people into captivity in Babylon and beyond (See 2 Chronicles 36:13-23). But even as this was happening, God sent the prophet Jeremiah to tell His people that He would eventually restore them to their land (Jeremiah 29:1-14). He also promised to make a New Covenant with them (Jeremiah 31:31-34). This New Covenant would not be like the Old. For instead of writing His commandments on tablets of stone, God would write them on His peoples’ hearts – giving them both the knowledge of His will and the desire to obey it (Ezekiel 36:26-27). And they would all know God personally, rather than only hear His word through a priest or prophet. And in this New Covenant God promised to forgive them and remember their sins no more.
Jesus inaugurated the New Covenant by His death. On eve of His crucifixion, He took the cup and said, “This is the New Covenant in My blood” (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25). Then He went to the cross, bearing our sins in His own body (1 Peter 2:24) and suffering the full fury of God’s wrath as the true Lamb of God (John 1:29, 35). By doing so, Jesus fully and forever satisfied the justice of God (Romans 3:25-26; 1 John 2:2). Therefore, we, who were once enemies of God, have now been reconciled to Him (Romans 5:9-10). The Old Covenant with its law came through Moses, but Jesus Christ ushered in the New Covenant with its unlimited grace (John 1:17).
Therefore, the Christian believer never needs to fear the Law of Moses or the curses that come for disobeying it. That was part of the Old Covenant, a covenant which has passed away. We are now under the New Covenant through which we are saved.
REFLECTION
- Has anyone ever put guilt on you for not observing certain commands of the Old Covenant (e.g. tithing, observing the Sabbath), suggesting you’re under a curse?
- But who delivered us from the curse of the Law (Galatians 3:13)? Besides this, does the Old Covenant and its law have any jurisdiction over us (Romans 6:14)?
