What Is New In The New Covenant?

I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

This is the Twelfth post from Chapter 8 of Friends With God: God’s Friendship With Israel And The Church, in which we are exploring the relationship, similarities, and differences between the Old and New Covenants.

The First Time The New Covenant In Mentioned

As we have seen from the previous post, there are some very important differences between the Old and the New Covenant, particularly regarding how Christians are to keep the Festivals of God. It may however be surprising to realize that when the term “New Covenant”, is first used in scripture it may not actually be referring to the Christian Covenant!

The first time a New Covenant is mentioned in scripture is in Jeremiah 31:31-37:

Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, says the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

If you note the context of the above verses, you will see that they are talking about a time in the long distant future, after Christ has established the Kingdom of God on Earth.

This new covenant is going to be written on their hearts, and it’s specifically a covenant for the house of Israel, and the house of Judah. It’s apparently not a covenant for the gentiles.

These verses in Jeremiah 31:31-37 are also quoted in Hebrews 8:8-12. Hebrews is a book to Jews (who are Hebrews) about the New Covenant. The topic of God’s relationship with the gentiles is not mentioned at all in Hebrews. This is significant, as most commentators consider that Hebrews is one of the later books of the New Testament, so the issue of uncircumcised gentiles coming to God would have been well and truly understood by the time it was written. Yet gentiles are totally ignored in the book of Hebrews, which serves to emphasise that the focus of the book is to the Jews.

You may also notice that there is no mention of the issue of circumcision in the book of Hebrews. If circumcision was not required of the Jews in the New Covenant, then this book, written to Jews, would have been the obvious place to mention such a major change. Yet the topic is omitted, giving significant weight to the argument that there was no change in the requirement for Jews to be circumcised.

We see therefore that circumcision is not required in the New Covenant, but is an exclusively Old Covenant requirement. Therefore, if circumcision is not done away with when a Jew comes into the New Covenant, it can therefore only be required of them because they are also in the Old Covenant. These covenants therefore are not exclusive to each other, but in fact complement each other.

photo by author

I Will Put My Laws In Their Mind

The New Covenant mentioned in Jeremiah and Hebrews does not do away with the law of God from the Old Covenant, instead it will be written in their hearts: I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts. (Heb 8:10)

God is not doing away with His Law, but is emphasising its importance by putting it in the hearts and minds of physical Israel so that they become elevated into the new relationship with God of being his spiritual Children in the new Spiritual Israel - for, (as discussed in a previous post) this was God’s intent and purpose all along in giving His law to Israel.

What then is new about the New Covenant spoken of by Jeremiah? Some claim that Jeremiah is simply talking about a ‘renewal’ of the Old Covenant rather than a specific New Covenant.

This idea is often taught amongst “Messianic Christians” who understand that there are strong “Hebrew Roots” (as they call them) within all scripture. As such they feel that the New Covenant includes all aspects of the Old Covenant, but it’s simply ‘written in our hearts’ rather than on stone. Many of these Messianic Christians consider that circumcision for gentiles is also required, which, as we have seen in previous posts, is certainly not the case.

Messianic Christians also focus on the Law of God, rather than the Covenant, which these laws are an integral part of. They talk about their conversion to believing in God as being when they came to understand “Torah”, which is the Hebrew word for law.

Yet the law is not everything in the covenant. By focusing on the law, they often become legalistic, thus falling into the same trap that the Pharisees were caught in. Their legalism may then lead into authoritarianism, and exclusivity, and the enforcing of their perspectives onto others. Consequently, they often miss out on the personal relationship between God and Man, which the fact of having a ‘covenant’ relationship implies.

To consider that the New Covenant mentioned here is merely a renewal of the Old Covenant and its laws, is to misread what God is clearly saying:

“I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers”.

So, this New Covenant is not according to the previous covenant- it is different.

Writing the law in their hearts is only one aspect of this covenant that is mentioned here. Yet, as we have seen, this aspect was already required in the Old Covenant when it says “you shall love the Lord with your whole heart…”. and “circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stiff-necked”.

So, what in the New Covenant is actually “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers”? We have mentioned some differences between the two covenants in the how we keep the Festivals Of God in the New Covenant. However, are there more fundamental changes between these two covenants?

Hebrews 8:13

Many Christian groups claim that all of the Old Covenant has been done away with, but some bits of it were reinstated in the New Covenant - yet scripture never mentions such a process, or provides any list of what is in or out.

The main argument for a distinction between these two covenants is the statement in Hebrews, which says:

In that He says, A new covenant, He has made the first one old. Now that which decays and becomes old is ready to vanish away. (Heb 8:13)

However, as discussed in previous posts, the word covenant in this verse has been added by the translators. They also added covenant to Hebrews 8:7 and 9:1, changing the entire meaning of this section of scripture.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
(Heb 8:7)

Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness.
(Heb 9:1)

If Hebrews chapter 8 and 9 are not talking about a new covenant, what is Paul talking about?

The subject being addressed by all the chapters leading up to Hebrews 8, is Christ and his role as the High Priest of the New Covenant. Hebrews 8:13 could therefore logically continue this theme by saying:

In that He says, A new (priesthood), He has made the first one (priesthood) old. Now that which decays and becomes old is ready to vanish away. Hebrews 8:13

Similarly, Hebrews 8:7 and 9:1 could read:

For if that first priesthood had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
(Heb 8:7)

Now even the first priesthood had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness.
(Heb 9:1)

While this makes sense, the translators have let us down even more when we look at Hebrews 8:13, for the words decays, waxes old and vanish away, would seem to indicate that the priesthood is to be totally removed. However, those Greek words which decays, waxes old and vanish away are translated from are in fact very similar to each other, and they don’t actually mean “completely dead” or “done away with”. They simply mean old and of minimal value and worn out.

The priesthood did almost vanish after the Temple was destroyed in 70AD, as most of the priests were killed by the Romans at that time. Yet the priesthood did not disappear completely, as there are still descendants of the priests alive today, but, as they have no temple, their role is virtually the same as any other Levite in reading the law and conducting the services in the synagogues.

However, if you read the book of Ezekiel from chapters 40 to 48, you will see that God will have some physical Israelite priests in the Kingdom of God, on Earth, after Christ returns. We also see that after Christ returns, the resurrected immortal saints will also be kings and priests and will reign with him in the Kingdom of God:

Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. (Rev 20:6)

Perhaps, in comparison to the new priesthood of Christ and his immortal Saints, the old physical priesthood is going to be old and of minimal value and worn out, but it seems that they will still be an important element in the new physical temple mentioned by Ezekiel.

The New Covenant mentioned in Jeremiah and Hebrews is certainly not easy to understand, but it is specifically a Covenant with Israel, not with the gentiles. It’s not clear, however, if this New Covenant is the same as the New Covenant with Christ, which is for all people, but the issues being discussed in Hebrews don’t mention the gentiles, nor Israel’s relationship with them.

The book of Hebrews therefore seems to be talking about the reduced role of the physical priests in the Kingdom of God, after Christ’s return, and the specific role of Israel at that time. It is also indicating that the Levitical priesthood is not serving the New Testament Christian believers, that service is now undertaken directly by Christ.

This “New Covenant” mentioned in Hebrews and Jeremiah is a covenant to be made in the future with Israel, while the New Covenant with Christ is for all people today, both Jew and gentile.

The next post in this series will continue to examine the role of God’s Festivals being kept in both the Christian and Israelite Covenants.