signs-new_covenant

The New Covenant

As Jeremiah came closer to announcing that the

Mosaic covenant had been broken, he complained

more and more about the “stubborn and rebellious

heart” of the people. The heart, in biblical imagery, is not the

seat of emotion but of the will—where the decision to love

and obey is made—and Jeremiah perceives that the heart is

so corrupt that the people cannot obey, even if they want to.

Through Jeremiah, God says:

The heart is devious above all else;

it is perverse—

who can understand it?

I the Lord test the mind

and search the heart,

to give to all according to their ways,

according to the fruit of their doings.

( Jeremiah 17:9-10, NRSV)

When Jeremiah says the heart is devious, perverse and

beyond understanding, he foreshadows the cry of Paul, “For

I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans

7:15, NRSV). Together, these verses express the most

profound understanding of the human condition. Sometimes

ruled by desires and compulsions that we may not understand

or find impossible to control, always limited by the subjectivity

of our perceptions; even when we will the good, we often

choose a course that has unintended consequences for ill. At

their best, “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah

64:6, NIV). Again Jeremiah gives us God’s words:

For thus says the Lord:

Your hurt is incurable,

your wound is grievous.

There is no one to uphold your cause,

no medicine for your wound,

no healing for you.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Why do you cry out over your hurt?

Your pain is incurable.

( Jeremiah 30:12-13, 15a, NRSV)

Since God requires righteousness—the very thing that we cannot

achieve because of the incurable woundedness of the human

heart and will—God must intervene at a most profound

level if we are ultimately to be saved. In the face of this reality,

God offers a new possibility—healing for the heart, given miraculously,

graciously, without our meriting it:

For I will restore health to you,

and your wounds I will heal, says the Lord,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

And you shall be my people,

and I will be your God.

( Jeremiah 30:17a, 22, NRSV)

Jeremiah’s contemporary, the prophet Ezekiel, brought

these words of promise from God to the exile community:

I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within

them; I will remove the heart of stone from their

flesh and give them a heart of flesh, so that they may

follow my statutes and keep my ordinances and obey

them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be

their God. (Ezekiel 11:19-20, NRSV)

and,

I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall

be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all

your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give

you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I

will remove from your body the heart of stone and

give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within

you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful

to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the

land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be

my people, and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:25-

28, NRSV)

It is the possibility of a new heart, a new will miraculously

transplanted into the human soul, that alone holds out hope

for obedience to God.

This promise of a new heart is like the promise God gave

Abraham, a blessing not based on human capacity for goodness

or obedience but rather on God’s utter graciousness.

However, it is different from the covenant with Abraham in

that it provides the means by which God’s desire that humankind

live a moral life might be fulfilled. The ethical imperative

of the Mosaic covenant can now be accomplished through the

radical gift of a new heart, a new divinely implanted human will

that wills according to the will of God. In this promise grace

and truth are united.

Because this promise is based on the healing of the perverted

heart, the new covenant requires God to reach into the

center of each individual personality. This means that the so-

cial structure of the kingdom of God is inevitably changed. It

can no longer be based upon ethnicity as with the choice of

Abraham and his descendents. Neither can it be located in a

community that is geographically or politically defined as was

the case with Israel and Judah under the judges and kings. The

new covenant community must be a voluntary community of

those who have accepted God’s salvation by faith.1

Therefore, in announcing the new covenant, God makes it

clear that it “will not be like the covenant that I made” before:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I

will make a new covenant with the house of Israel

and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant

that I made with their ancestors when I took

them by the hand to bring them out of the land of

Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was

their husband, says the Lord.

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 within them, and I will write it on their

hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my

people. No longer shall they teach one another, or

say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all

know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says

the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember

their sin no more. ( Jeremiah 31:31-33, NRSV)

This is salvation indeed. Healing for the heart promises

to resolve the root cause of the disobedience that resulted in

humanity breaking the covenant with God. Therefore, it is

possible for God to announce a new covenant in which it can

be said once more: “I will be their God, and they will be my

people” ( Jeremiah 31:33, NRSV).

According to the scriptures, God has chosen to seal the

great covenants with blood. This was true of the covenants

with Abraham and Moses; it is also true of the new covenant.

When God led Abraham out of Ur and promised to give

him land and descendants who would become a blessing for all

the nations, God confirmed that promise in a covenant ritual:

[God said to Abram], “Bring me a heifer three years

old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years

old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” He brought

him all these and cut them in two, laying each half

over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in

two. And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses,

Abram drove them away. As the sun was going

down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, and a deep

and terrifying darkness descended upon him. . . .

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a

smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between

these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant

with Abram. . . . (Genesis 15:9-12, 17-18a, NRSV)

When God was ready to establish the covenant with Moses,

it also required blood. Moses returned to the people from

the mountain after receiving the Ten Commandments and the

instructions of the Law, and the people prepared a great sacrifice:

Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins,

and half of the blood he dashed against the altar.

Then he took the book of the covenant, and read it

in the hearing of the people; and they said, “All that

the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”

Moses took the blood and dashed it on the

people, and said, “See the blood of the covenant that

the Lord has made with you in accordance with all

these words.” (Exodus 24:6-8, NRSV)

On the night during which Jesus was to be betrayed, he

brought his disciples to an upper room in Jerusalem to celebrate

the Passover. Jesus used the occasion to interpret his

coming crucifixion to his disciples:

He took a loaf of bread, and when he had given

thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This

is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance

of me.” And he did the same with the

cup after supper, saying, “This cup that is poured

out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” (Luke

22:19-20, NRSV; cf., 1 Corinthians 11:24-25)

The blood that Jesus shed on the cross inaugurated the new

covenant.

The Letter to the Hebrews develops this understanding of

the meaning of the cross in an extended passage in which Jesus

is called both “high priest” and “mediator of the new covenant”:

But when Christ came as high priest . . . he entered

once for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of

goats and calves but with his own blood, thus obtaining

eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats

and bulls and the sprinkling of a heifer’s ashes can

sanctify those who are defiled so that their flesh is

cleansed, how much more will the blood of Christ,

who through the eternal spirit offered himself unblemished

to God, cleanse our consciences from

dead works to worship the living God. For this reason

he is mediator of a new covenant: since a death

has taken place for deliverance from transgressions

under the first covenant, those who are called may

receive the promised eternal inheritance. (Hebrews

9:11-15, NAB)

What is the “promised eternal inheritance”? It is eternal

life—life that flows from the three promises God made to humanity

in the new covenant: the forgiveness of sins, the law

written inwardly on the heart, and the unmediated knowledge

of the presence of God. Together, these promises are the wellspring

of salvation.

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