The New Covenant (Part 2)
Bible Study Time 6-4-06
Church links:
Bible Study Time 6-4-06
The Law of Moses is what the book of Hebrews calls the First Covenant. It was formalized at Mt. Sinai when God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. This First Covenant was glorious in that it did reveal the righteousness of God, but it was flawed in that it did not provide its followers with the power to live according to God’s righteousness. Therefore, a thousand years after the First Covenant was given, God promised a New Covenant. In Jeremiah 31:31, the Lord said:
Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NKJ)
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah--
32 "not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Now, oddly enough, the New Covenant is not a major theme in the New Testament scriptures. The Lord mentions it at the Last Supper, and Paul mentions it twice in his letters to the Corinthians. But then, the New Covenant is thoroughly examined by the writer of the book of Hebrews.
According to Matthew’s account of the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus took a cup of wine and gave thanks. Then the Lord gave the cup to his disciples, saying:
Matthew 26:27-28 (NKJ)
27 . . . "Drink from it, all of you.
28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
That very evening the Lord was arrested and the next day He was crucified.
In I Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul repeated the words which the Lord spoke at the Last Supper because the Corinthian believers were apparently misusing the words of the Lord to justified some of their church traditions. Paul wanted to set the record straight so He wrote in I Corinthians 11:23:
1 Corinthians 11:23-25 (NKJ)
23 . . . I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
Paul went on to say that there was no way the Corinthian believers could justify the things that they were doing on the basis of the words of the Lord.
In II Corinthians 3, Paul declared that He was an able minister of the New Covenant. He said that the way God had worked in their lives and changed their lives was all that he needed to justify his ministry among them. He said:
2 Corinthians 3:5-6 (NKJ)
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
God did many miracles, wonders and signs through the Apostle Paul during the Acts period, and Paul understood that these miracles were being done by the power of the Holy Spirit. He understood that this outpouring of the Holy Spirit was in keeping with the ministry of the New Covenant. The Old Testament prophets had predicted that the New Covenant Kingdom would be preceded by this great outpouring of God’s Spirit. Therefore, Paul said that he was an able minister of the New Covenant.
In II Corinthians 3, Paul spoke of the glory of the First Covenant, the Law of Moses. He said that the Law was so glorious that Moses had to put a veil over his face when he came down from Mt. Sinai because his face was shining so brightly. Then, Paul reminded the Corinthians that as time went on Moses’ face stopped shining and his face went back to normal. This pictured the fact that the glory of the Law was a fading glory. Its glory was going to fade away in the light of the glory of the New Covenant. Paul said:
2 Corinthians 3:7-11 (NKJ)
7 . . . if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,
8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?
9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.
10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels.
11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
The Lord mentioned the New Covenant once, and Paul mentioned it twice, but it was left up to the writer of the book of Hebrews to really explain the details of the New Covenant. In Hebrews, Chapter 8, we see that even before the creation of all things, God had a tabernacle in heaven with lampstands and a table and an altar and all of the things that were contained in the earthly tabernacle that Moses built. In fact, the things that Moses made were patterned after the heavenly things.
In the First Covenant, God called upon Aaron and his sons to offer animal sacrifices and sprinkle the blood of those sacrifices on the altar of the earthly tabernacle. However, all through the years of that First Covenant, there was no blood sprinkled on the heavenly altar. God was reserving that altar for the blood of the New Covenant.
Hebrews 10 says that it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. Therefore, no blood from the animal sacrifices was ever placed on the heavenly altar. That altar was waiting for the blood of Jesus Christ.
When John the Baptist saw the Lord Jesus, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” When the Lord Jesus gave the wine to His disciples at the Last Supper, He said, “This is my blood of the New Covenant.” As Jesus drank that wine, He knew that the time had come for Him to shed the blood of the New Covenant, and He knew that with that blood, He would deal with the sins of the world once and for all.
Obviously then, as God was waiting for the blood of the New Covenant all through the years of the First Covenant, He was using the First Covenant to picture what He was going to do in the New Covenant. The Law was given as a teacher to bring mankind into an understanding of God’s true righteousness and justice. The tabernacle of the Law pictured the tabernacle in heaven, and the sacrifices of the Law pictured the death of the Lord Jesus.
The animal sacrifices pictured the Lord Jesus, but we must not forget that the priests also pictured the Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ was designated as both the Lamb of God and the High Priest of God even before the creation. Revelation 13:8 says that the Lord Jesus is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.
Then, when we think of the Lord’s position as High Priest, we have to think about the fact that Abraham paid a tithe to a Priest named Melchizedek way back in Genesis 14. David said that the Messiah would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and the book of Hebrews confirms that Jesus Christ is the High Priest of the New Covenant. It says:
Hebrews 5:4-6 (NKJ)
4 . . . no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.
5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was (God) who said to Him: "You are My Son, today I have begotten You."
6 As He also says in another place: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek";
And so, Jesus Christ offered His blood as the blood of the New Covenant, and as the High Priest of the New Covenant, He carried that blood into the heavenly tabernacle and placed it upon the mercyseat of the altar. Once that was done, the earth was ready for the outpouring of God’s Spirit and the glory of the kingdom.
Now, if we go back and take a look at Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning the New Covenant, we find that God says He will establish the New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. He does not say that He will establish the New Covenant with the Gentiles.
When the Lord Jesus spoke of the New Covenant at the Last Supper, He was speaking to His Jewish disciples about the Jewish people when He said, “This is my blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many.” When the writer of Hebrews spoke of the superiority of the New Covenant, he was obviously writing to the Hebrews. But what about Paul? What about his references to the New Covenant in I and II Corinthians? Wasn’t Paul the minister to the Gentiles?
Yes, Paul was the minister to the Gentiles, but in the early years of his ministry, he went out, as he said, as a minister of the New Covenant. In Romans, Chapter 1, he said that God’s offer of salvation was to the Jew first and also to the Greek. In Romans 15:8, Paul said that Jesus Christ came to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and then he quoted four different Old Testament passages to prove that the salvation of God had to go out to the Gentiles before the kingdom could come.
If we examine Paul’s early letters, we see that in I and II Corinthians Paul mentioned the New Covenant twice. In II Thessalonians 2, Paul warned the people about the coming of the antichrist and the fact that the antichrist had to come before the setting up of the kingdom. In I Corinthians 6, Paul taught that believers will someday judge the world. In Romans 8, Paul said that the whole creation groans with labor pains as it eagerly waits for the revelation of the Sons of God.
Now let me just say that the creation is not eagerly awaiting the rapture of the Church because after the rapture of the Church the labor pains of the creation will become worse and worse until the revelation of the Sons of God at the second coming of Christ.
As we look at statements such as this one in Romans, we cannot help but conclude that in Paul’s early ministry, he was looking, not for the rapture of the church, but he was looking for the return of the Lord Jesus who would defeat the antichrist and set up the kingdom.
On the other hand, when we study the letters of Paul’s later ministry, we see that Paul has a totally different point of view. Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians as well as Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus were written after the Acts period, and in those letters he makes no mention of the New Covenant, the antichrist, the tribulation period or any of those things. Only in those letters does Paul specifically reveal the Church which is the Body of Christ. Only in those letters does he reveal the Church which is the Body of Christ as a heavenly institution. Only in those letters does Paul reveal that all believers today are members of the Church which is the Body of Christ and that, as such, we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies.
There are many doctrines which set Paul’s later epistles apart from his earlier writings, and we’re not going to go into all of those points of doctrine today, but it is to these later epistles of Paul that believers today should look for specific direction.
All scripture is profitable because we can always learn from the wisdom and the foolishness of those who lived before us or will live after us, but we cannot expect to experience all of the things that the people of others ages experience. God’s dealings with the Church of our present age is uniquely different from his dealings with the people of other ages.
During the Acts period, the Holy Spirit was being poured out upon the believers who accepted Christ, and they experienced miracles, wonders and signs. However, when Israel steadfastly refused to accept Christ throughout the Acts period, God temporarily set aside Israel’s hope of the New Covenant Kingdom. It was at that time that God allowed Paul to start revealing the Church which is the Body of Christ.
After the rapture of the Church, God will bring back the ministry of the New Covenant during the tribulation period, and once again, there will be a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit with miracles, wonders and signs.
In Acts, Chapter 2, Peter quotes from Joel, Chapter 2, to show that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was predicted as that which would come before the setting up of the kingdom, but if we look back in Joel, Chapter 2, at the preceding verses, we see that Joel gives us a hint that the outpouring of the Spirit will come in two different phases. Verse 23 says:
Joel 2:23 (NKJ)
23 Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God; for He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you-- the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.
Of coarse, Joel was specifically referring to the former rain and the latter rain which are both necessary for a good harvest, but in the context of His prophesy concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we see a hint that there will be a former rain and a latter rain. The former rain occurred during the Acts period, and the latter rain will occur during the tribulation period. It will be after the latter rain, that Christ will return to the earth to harvest His elect. Matthew 24 says:
Matthew 24:30-31 (NKJ)
30 "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
What a marvelous day that will be when the full glory of the New Covenant is revealed on the earth as Jesus Christ rules and reigns for a thousand years.
Well, I see that our time is gone for this morning. It’s been a pleasure being with you, and I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NKJ)
31 "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah--
32 "not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
33 "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
Now, oddly enough, the New Covenant is not a major theme in the New Testament scriptures. The Lord mentions it at the Last Supper, and Paul mentions it twice in his letters to the Corinthians. But then, the New Covenant is thoroughly examined by the writer of the book of Hebrews.
According to Matthew’s account of the Last Supper, the Lord Jesus took a cup of wine and gave thanks. Then the Lord gave the cup to his disciples, saying:
Matthew 26:27-28 (NKJ)
27 . . . "Drink from it, all of you.
28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
That very evening the Lord was arrested and the next day He was crucified.
In I Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul repeated the words which the Lord spoke at the Last Supper because the Corinthian believers were apparently misusing the words of the Lord to justified some of their church traditions. Paul wanted to set the record straight so He wrote in I Corinthians 11:23:
1 Corinthians 11:23-25 (NKJ)
23 . . . I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread;
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me."
25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
Paul went on to say that there was no way the Corinthian believers could justify the things that they were doing on the basis of the words of the Lord.
In II Corinthians 3, Paul declared that He was an able minister of the New Covenant. He said that the way God had worked in their lives and changed their lives was all that he needed to justify his ministry among them. He said:
2 Corinthians 3:5-6 (NKJ)
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God,
6 who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
God did many miracles, wonders and signs through the Apostle Paul during the Acts period, and Paul understood that these miracles were being done by the power of the Holy Spirit. He understood that this outpouring of the Holy Spirit was in keeping with the ministry of the New Covenant. The Old Testament prophets had predicted that the New Covenant Kingdom would be preceded by this great outpouring of God’s Spirit. Therefore, Paul said that he was an able minister of the New Covenant.
In II Corinthians 3, Paul spoke of the glory of the First Covenant, the Law of Moses. He said that the Law was so glorious that Moses had to put a veil over his face when he came down from Mt. Sinai because his face was shining so brightly. Then, Paul reminded the Corinthians that as time went on Moses’ face stopped shining and his face went back to normal. This pictured the fact that the glory of the Law was a fading glory. Its glory was going to fade away in the light of the glory of the New Covenant. Paul said:
2 Corinthians 3:7-11 (NKJ)
7 . . . if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away,
8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?
9 For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory.
10 For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect, because of the glory that excels.
11 For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious.
The Lord mentioned the New Covenant once, and Paul mentioned it twice, but it was left up to the writer of the book of Hebrews to really explain the details of the New Covenant. In Hebrews, Chapter 8, we see that even before the creation of all things, God had a tabernacle in heaven with lampstands and a table and an altar and all of the things that were contained in the earthly tabernacle that Moses built. In fact, the things that Moses made were patterned after the heavenly things.
In the First Covenant, God called upon Aaron and his sons to offer animal sacrifices and sprinkle the blood of those sacrifices on the altar of the earthly tabernacle. However, all through the years of that First Covenant, there was no blood sprinkled on the heavenly altar. God was reserving that altar for the blood of the New Covenant.
Hebrews 10 says that it is not possible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. Therefore, no blood from the animal sacrifices was ever placed on the heavenly altar. That altar was waiting for the blood of Jesus Christ.
When John the Baptist saw the Lord Jesus, he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” When the Lord Jesus gave the wine to His disciples at the Last Supper, He said, “This is my blood of the New Covenant.” As Jesus drank that wine, He knew that the time had come for Him to shed the blood of the New Covenant, and He knew that with that blood, He would deal with the sins of the world once and for all.
Obviously then, as God was waiting for the blood of the New Covenant all through the years of the First Covenant, He was using the First Covenant to picture what He was going to do in the New Covenant. The Law was given as a teacher to bring mankind into an understanding of God’s true righteousness and justice. The tabernacle of the Law pictured the tabernacle in heaven, and the sacrifices of the Law pictured the death of the Lord Jesus.
The animal sacrifices pictured the Lord Jesus, but we must not forget that the priests also pictured the Lord Jesus. Jesus Christ was designated as both the Lamb of God and the High Priest of God even before the creation. Revelation 13:8 says that the Lord Jesus is the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.
Then, when we think of the Lord’s position as High Priest, we have to think about the fact that Abraham paid a tithe to a Priest named Melchizedek way back in Genesis 14. David said that the Messiah would be a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and the book of Hebrews confirms that Jesus Christ is the High Priest of the New Covenant. It says:
Hebrews 5:4-6 (NKJ)
4 . . . no man takes this honor to himself, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was.
5 So also Christ did not glorify Himself to become High Priest, but it was (God) who said to Him: "You are My Son, today I have begotten You."
6 As He also says in another place: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek";
And so, Jesus Christ offered His blood as the blood of the New Covenant, and as the High Priest of the New Covenant, He carried that blood into the heavenly tabernacle and placed it upon the mercyseat of the altar. Once that was done, the earth was ready for the outpouring of God’s Spirit and the glory of the kingdom.
Now, if we go back and take a look at Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning the New Covenant, we find that God says He will establish the New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. He does not say that He will establish the New Covenant with the Gentiles.
When the Lord Jesus spoke of the New Covenant at the Last Supper, He was speaking to His Jewish disciples about the Jewish people when He said, “This is my blood of the New Covenant which is shed for many.” When the writer of Hebrews spoke of the superiority of the New Covenant, he was obviously writing to the Hebrews. But what about Paul? What about his references to the New Covenant in I and II Corinthians? Wasn’t Paul the minister to the Gentiles?
Yes, Paul was the minister to the Gentiles, but in the early years of his ministry, he went out, as he said, as a minister of the New Covenant. In Romans, Chapter 1, he said that God’s offer of salvation was to the Jew first and also to the Greek. In Romans 15:8, Paul said that Jesus Christ came to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and then he quoted four different Old Testament passages to prove that the salvation of God had to go out to the Gentiles before the kingdom could come.
If we examine Paul’s early letters, we see that in I and II Corinthians Paul mentioned the New Covenant twice. In II Thessalonians 2, Paul warned the people about the coming of the antichrist and the fact that the antichrist had to come before the setting up of the kingdom. In I Corinthians 6, Paul taught that believers will someday judge the world. In Romans 8, Paul said that the whole creation groans with labor pains as it eagerly waits for the revelation of the Sons of God.
Now let me just say that the creation is not eagerly awaiting the rapture of the Church because after the rapture of the Church the labor pains of the creation will become worse and worse until the revelation of the Sons of God at the second coming of Christ.
As we look at statements such as this one in Romans, we cannot help but conclude that in Paul’s early ministry, he was looking, not for the rapture of the church, but he was looking for the return of the Lord Jesus who would defeat the antichrist and set up the kingdom.
On the other hand, when we study the letters of Paul’s later ministry, we see that Paul has a totally different point of view. Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians as well as Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus were written after the Acts period, and in those letters he makes no mention of the New Covenant, the antichrist, the tribulation period or any of those things. Only in those letters does Paul specifically reveal the Church which is the Body of Christ. Only in those letters does he reveal the Church which is the Body of Christ as a heavenly institution. Only in those letters does Paul reveal that all believers today are members of the Church which is the Body of Christ and that, as such, we are seated with Christ in the heavenlies.
There are many doctrines which set Paul’s later epistles apart from his earlier writings, and we’re not going to go into all of those points of doctrine today, but it is to these later epistles of Paul that believers today should look for specific direction.
All scripture is profitable because we can always learn from the wisdom and the foolishness of those who lived before us or will live after us, but we cannot expect to experience all of the things that the people of others ages experience. God’s dealings with the Church of our present age is uniquely different from his dealings with the people of other ages.
During the Acts period, the Holy Spirit was being poured out upon the believers who accepted Christ, and they experienced miracles, wonders and signs. However, when Israel steadfastly refused to accept Christ throughout the Acts period, God temporarily set aside Israel’s hope of the New Covenant Kingdom. It was at that time that God allowed Paul to start revealing the Church which is the Body of Christ.
After the rapture of the Church, God will bring back the ministry of the New Covenant during the tribulation period, and once again, there will be a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit with miracles, wonders and signs.
In Acts, Chapter 2, Peter quotes from Joel, Chapter 2, to show that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was predicted as that which would come before the setting up of the kingdom, but if we look back in Joel, Chapter 2, at the preceding verses, we see that Joel gives us a hint that the outpouring of the Spirit will come in two different phases. Verse 23 says:
Joel 2:23 (NKJ)
23 Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God; for He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you-- the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month.
Of coarse, Joel was specifically referring to the former rain and the latter rain which are both necessary for a good harvest, but in the context of His prophesy concerning the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we see a hint that there will be a former rain and a latter rain. The former rain occurred during the Acts period, and the latter rain will occur during the tribulation period. It will be after the latter rain, that Christ will return to the earth to harvest His elect. Matthew 24 says:
Matthew 24:30-31 (NKJ)
30 "Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
What a marvelous day that will be when the full glory of the New Covenant is revealed on the earth as Jesus Christ rules and reigns for a thousand years.
Well, I see that our time is gone for this morning. It’s been a pleasure being with you, and I’ll look forward to being with you again next week at this same time.
Write me at: jimjoan77@juno.com
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