Last week, I gave you a 700-word essay on the importance of the New Covenant (NC). Here is a definition to think about.
The NC is the final covenant Yahweh established with disciples of Christ (believers) through His Son’s sacrificial death. In it, Yahweh promises to write His law on a new heart, to forgive all their sins, to seal them with the Holy Spirit, and to grant them eternal life. Unbelievers are not part of this covenant. Only those who have experienced the birth from above are included in this unconditional, eternal, and internal covenant between God and the members of His body. (Jer 31:31–34, Eze 36:26–27, Luke 22:20, John 3:3–8, Heb 8:6–13, 9:15).
With that backdrop, let me give you some of the “so-what?” of the New Covenant.
- Believers have direct access to the Triune God through Christ our great High Priest; human mediators are not required (Heb 8:1–2). All disciples of Christ are members of a royal priesthood (1Pe 2:9).
- The Law of Christ (Gal 6:2), not the Law of Moses, is our Law (Mat 22:37–40). This means:
- We study the OT as the foundation for the NC and to learn godly principles and Yahweh’s character and nature (1Co 10:11).
- Laws about tithing must not be selectively applied to the NC believer. Believers are called to see all their money as the Lord’s and then to give generously.
- The Lord’s Day is not the Sabbath of the Law of Moses. Christ is our Sabbath (Heb 4:9–10).
- We make a distinction between the Law of Moses and God’s natural law (aka creation order) first revealed in Genesis 1–2 (see Mat 19:4–6, Rom 1–2).
- We don’t use the language of civil, ceremonial, and moral law.
- Ethnic national territorial Israel and the church of Jesus Christ are not the same.
- Only those with a clear testimony of conversion and salvation are:
- Permitted entrance into church membership.
- Given the sign of the NC, believer’s baptism by immersion. Spiritual circumcision of the heart (regeneration) marks one’s entrance into the NC. Therefore, only those in the NC may be baptized. Believer’s baptism has no OT counterpart. It is new like the NC.
- Served the Lord’s Supper (1Co 11:23–26).
- The believer’s standing before God is secure in Christ’s perfect obedience and His imputed righteousness, NOT our individual obedience (Mat 5:17).
- Since we live under the NC, we must read the Old Testament in light of the New Testament. OT texts must not be cherry-picked and applied to modern-day nations like America or Israel.
- Unlike OT saints, NC believers are new creations in Christ, supernaturally empowered by the Spirit to obey God (Eze 11:19–20, 2Co 5:17).
Finally, the New Covenant is not just for Israel. Christ, the mediator of the New Covenant, has commissioned every disciple to go into all the nations (ethnicities) to make disciples who, in turn, make disciples (Mat 28:18–20). The gospel of Jesus must be proclaimed to the whole creation (Mark 16:15). The New Covenant changes not only what we believe but also how we live, worship, interpret Scripture, and make disciples.
