New Salem Baptist Church

The New Covenant

Sep. 29, 2024

Read Hebrews 8:7-13.

To whom is the new covenant promised? And, are we Gentiles in it now? We will seek to answer both of these questions this morning.

Starting at verse 8, the author of Hebrews is quoting directly from Jeremiah 31:31-34.

⁸ For he finds fault with them when he says:

       “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,

when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel

and with the house of Judah, ^[1]

Of course, Jeremiah was speaking to the nation when he spoke on the Lord’s behalf hundreds of years before this. Yet, God is specific. He says, “I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”

Sometimes, you hear preachers or commentators try to say that, even though he was speaking to Israel and addresses them, it is meant for everyone. We shall now prove that this promise is specific to Israel and will be fulfilled to Israel.

Remember that the name, Israel, can mean the nation as a whole or it can mean the Northern Kingdom. As you recall, when Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, drastically increased the taxes, ten of the tribes rebelled and separated themselves from the tribe of Judah, becoming a new nation.

Here, God is so clear. He will make a covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. This cannot be just a “spiritual term” for the church because there is no “house of Israel and house of Judah” in the church. Israel means Israel and Judah means Judah.

To further affirm that this promise is for Israel the nation we need only read the context of Jeremiah 31.

⁸ Behold, I will bring them from the north country

and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,

       among them the blind and the lame,

the pregnant woman and she who is in labor, together;

a great company, they shall return here. ^[2]

The Jewish people had been taken captive, first the Northern Kingdom by Syria and then Judah by the Babylonian Empire. God is promising to bring them back to their land.

¹⁰    “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations,

and declare it in the coastlands far away;

       say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him,

and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.’ ^[3]

“Israel” will be regathered. This cannot refer to the first regathering when they first left Persia under Zerubbabel and lived in the land even until the time of Christ. Let us look at the context a little more carefully.

Jeremiah is giving one long, uninterupted discourse which begins in chapter 30, verse one (30:1) -

³ For behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will restore the fortunes of my people, Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I will bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take possession of it.” ^[4]

But they never had possession of it. The Persians controlled it and possessed it and only allowed the Israelites to live there. Then the Greeks, under Alexander and later under Antiochus possessed it. Then the Romans possessed it. Israel was always a vassal after their return.

¹⁰    “Then fear not, O Jacob my servant, declares the Lord,

nor be dismayed, O Israel;

       for behold, I will save you from far away,

and your offspring from the land of their captivity.

       Jacob shall return and have quiet and ease,

and none shall make him afraid. ^[5]

This never happened. Israel was always in fear of their subjugators.

Perhaps the strongest proof that this promise to Israel has not been fulfilled yet are the verses following right after the text that the author of Hebrews quotes:

³⁵    Thus says the Lord,

       who gives the sun for light by day

and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,

       who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—

the Lord of hosts is his name:

³⁶    “If this fixed order departs

from before me, declares the Lord,

       then shall the offspring of Israel cease

from being a nation before me forever.” ^[6]

They would never cease to be a nation! But they did cease to be a nation. In 70 AD the land was desolated and those who didn’t die were taken as slaves and expatriated. There were few Jews left in the land and then, after the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132-135 AD, they were crushed and all survivors were taken away. They ceased to be a nation.

Israel would not become a nation again until 1948 – 1,813 years later.

Here is the point: the promise of the new covenant for Israel is conjoined with the other promises of

• possessing the land,
• living in quiet and ease,
• and never ceasing to be a nation.

Thus, this promise of the new covenant for Israel has not been fulfilled and is yet future. This fits the context of the first half of the book of Hebrews which speaks of the rest to come.

So, we have answered the first question: To whom was the promise given? It is to Israel. Now we proceed to our second question: Are we in the new covenant now? I think we all know the answer to this question. Yes, we are! The rest of the New Testament makes this abundantly clear.

Let us rejoice in the aspect of the new covenant into which we have entered.

The aspect of the new covenant which we possess now is found in verse 10 of chapter 8:

¹⁰    For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

after those days, declares the Lord:

       I will put my laws into their minds,

and write them on their hearts,

       and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people. ^[7]

Even though both the promise and the reality of a new covenant was to Israel, the new covenant has been offered to the Gentile nations. Paul writing to the Corinthians in Greece:

⁴ Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. ⁵ Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, ⁶ who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. ^[8]

The main part of the new covenant that applies to us Paul mentions three verses earlier in 2 Cor. 3:3. He writes that the Spirit of the living God is writing on their hearts. As Hebrews 8:10 says, what is being written on our hearts is God’s law.

Whereas the law under the old covenant was external to man and could not enable him to be or do what he commended, now God is writing his law directly upon our hearts by his Spirit!

One of my favorite Christian recording artists, Neal Morse, has a song called The Great Adventure and some of the lyrics are these:

To be the completed man

To love and to understand

To change everything I can

It now makes sense to me.

To be who I could not be

To love you so easily

With your life inside of me

May the great adventure now begin.

Recall Hebrews 7:19 from last week:

¹⁹ for the law made nothing perfect; on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.^[9]

The meaning of the word, perfect, in the original language carries the idea of completion or maturity. So, the J.B. Phillips translation has “the law was incapable of bringing anyone to maturity.”

When Neal Morse sings, “To be the completed man…” he is recognizing that throughout his life he was incomplete. Once he comes to Christ he is enabled to be complete, to be whole again, to come to maturity. It is in the new covenant that we can be complete. The Hebrews could never be complete under the old covenant. And we could never be a complete person before we come to Christ.

Once we are bought into this covenant we are able to love. We are able to understand. Both love and understanding alluded us before. We failed to love those closest to us in the best way. We even failed to love ourselves in a good way. If we ever tried to read the Bible before, we didn’t understand it. But, once we came to Christ, the veil was removed from our eyes. We can now both love and we can understand the Bible.

The law does not have the power to change us and neither does it have the power to change anyone to whom we give it. But, once we are brought into the new covenant, we discover that the power is here!

“To be who I could not be…” In our own power we cannot be who God wants us to be. Our former lives testify to the fact that we could not even be what we wanted to be. Deep down, we all wanted to be wholesome, truthful, and pure; but we never could. By the power of the Lord’s indwelling life, which is promised in the new covenant (Ezek. 36:27), we can be who God wants us to be, which is who we really wish to be!

Whereas, we found it so difficult to love the Lord before, once we are brought into the new covenant, we discover that it is easy!

Then, Neal sings, “May the great adventure now begin.” This is what the life of a disciple of Christ is. It is an adventure!

• We learn new things every week.
• We learn what to flee.
• We learn what to embrace.
• We learn, day by day, that the Lord really loves us.
• We experience dangerous situations.
• And we see the Lord deliver us from them!
• The Christian life is an adventure!

[play song]

This is what God is doing: I will put my laws into their minds,

and write them on their hearts,

I wish to ask and answer two questions pertaining to this vital truth. How is this different from what God does for all people? And, How does God write his laws into us?

God puts his laws into our minds. But isn’t this what God does for all people? The apostle Paul says this in his letter to the Romans:

¹⁴ For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. ¹⁵ They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them^[10]

According to the apostle all people have the law of God written on their hearts. So, how is the new covenant promise different?

It is different in this way: before the coming of the new covenant the “law written on their hearts” was simply awareness. People know right and wrong and this creates a conflict within them because their desires are often contrary to God’s law.

But, under the new covenant he breathes his Spirit into those who are chosen and this Spirit causes them to walk according to his laws:

²⁷ And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.^[11]

The main way the Spirit does this is by putting the desire for God’s laws within them. Whereas only a few select persons under the old covenant had this kind of relationship with the Spirit of God, like King David, now all have it! We can say with David:

⁸ I delight to do your will, O my God;

your law is within my heart.” ^[12]

Next, how does God write his laws in the hearts of those who are in the covenant? We already see that it is by His Spirit creating the desire within us, but in more practical terms, how does he get his laws into us?

It is not by downloading. When you want to get something onto the hard drive of your computer, you just press a button and it loads. That is not the way God puts his laws into us.

There is the innate sense of right and wrong that all people have but, as we have stated, in the new covenant it goes far beyond this.

Think about the Lord Jesus when he was a toddler. How did he learn the Hebrew alphabet, Hebrew grammar, the rules of his household, even mathematics (he had to know some since he learned carpentry from Joseph)? The knowledge of those things did not magically appear in him. He had to learn Hebrew, learn grammar, and learn the laws of God by being taught.

We, too, must learn God’s laws (God’s laws are just his commands found in both testaments). If we do not make the effort to study them then our knowledge of God’s laws will go no further than the unbeliever who has only a general sense of God’s laws.

Someone is thinking, “The pastor is going to tell us to live in God’s word again!” I have to do that because that is what this text in Hebrews 8 calls for in describing  how the new covenant applies to us today.

As a final observation, note that Hebrews 8:11 says that we will not need to teach our neighbor because everyone will know the Lord. This clearly is in reference to Israel’s participation in the new covenant in the next age. It cannot apply to this age because we obviously need to teach our neighbors because they do not all know the Lord. It’s the mission of the church, meaning its your mission to teach others.

[Conclusion and Application] I can advocate for the application of today’s message with one word. Since I have advocated for this application so many times, what is that word? What must you do in one word? Schedule! Jesus scheduled his time daily. He got up before dawn and spent quality time with the Father. Pick your time, but we all must do it! Then God;s laws will be written on our hearts.