THE NEW COVENANT

THE NEW COVENANT

 Among the several Old Testament passages in which reference is made to this covenant, the most complete account appears in the prophecy of Jer. 31. A study of this passage reveals a number of things about the New Covenant which are relevant to our study of the Mediatorial Kingdom.
 First, the future covenant is "new" only in relation to the Mosaic covenant. In an earlier chapter Jeremiah shows that be is fully aware of the character and the weakness of the latter covenant (Jer. 11:1-8). It is against this background that the prophet describes the "new covenant." It will not be, God says, "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" (Jer. 31:31-32). The New Covenant is never thus set over against the Abrahamic and Davidic covenants, as if they needed to be replaced by something better.
 Second, the New Covenant arises out of, and is based on, Jehovah's everlasting love and grace. The announcement of this covenant is prefaced by these words: "The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore, with lovingkindness, have I drawn thee" (Jer. 31:3). This is asserted in the face of Israel's deplorable condition (Jer. 30:12-15), which absolutely precluded any divine favor based on meritorious character or deeds on her part.
 Third, the moral problem posed by the failure of the Mosaic covenant will under the New Covenant be met by God's own sovereign grace and power. The regal benefits promised by the Mosaic covenant had been lost because the nation had broken it. But now a "new covenant" will secure these benefits by means which are no longer legally conditioned. The solution of the problem is this, God says, "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts" (Jer. 31:33). By these means the benefits of the Mosaic covenant will be attained, and at the same time its moral requirements will be secured; not as a legal condition of blessing but as its divinely caused result. And the issue will be a new manner of life (Jer. 31:34).
 Fourth, the New Covenant, therefore, is in the gracious spirit of the earlier Abrahamic covenant, rather than in the legalistic spirit of the Mosaic covenant which it supplants. It is true that under the latter there was promised divine forgiveness in the case of Israel's failure. But here it is deeply significant that when the sin has been confessed and pardon has been granted, it is not on the basis of any surviving rights in the broken covenant of Sinai but simply because Jehovah remembers His earlier "covenant with Jacob, . . . with Isaac, and ... with Abraham" (Lev. 26:42). It is on this basis, He reminds the nation, that in spite of all they have done, "neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God" (Lev. 26:44). Exactly the same idea is expressed by Ezekiel in his reference to the New Covenant: Although the nation had broken the Mosaic covenant, "Nevereheless," God says, "I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant" (Ezek. 16:59-60). The expression "days of thy youth" fixes definitely the reference to the earlier covenant.
 The law of Moses, by sacrifice and Messianic prediction, had indeed "witnessed" (Rom. 3:21) to the future compassion of God extended to a sinful people who deserved nothing; but this mercy goes back for its ultimate ground to Jehovah's sovereign grace as expressed in His covenant with Abraham. In this respect, the New Covenant is totally different from the Mosaic covenant at Sinai. As Dr. C. W. E. Naegelsbach has written: "It is true no legal enactment of the Old Covenant is declared false in the New (Matt. 5:17-19); it is true that men knew even under the Old Covenant that the law, in order to be fulfilled ... must be in the heart (Deut. 30:6; Ps. 40:8; Prov. 3:1 ). But this ... is quite a different thing from that which Jeremiah means in this passage."
 Fifth, the New Covenant and its benefits will be guaranteed by the very order and stability of the created universe. "Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night .... If these ordinances depart from before me. . . . If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD" (Jer. 31:35-37). The creation and preservation of order in the universe are matters wholly beyond the control of men, depending on God alone. Even so, the New Covenant rests on what God is and does.
 Sixth, according to Jeremiah 31, the New Covenant is solidly embedded in a historical context. The people involved is the Israel of history, which had been "scattered" (Jer. 31:10), and whose children shall be gathered again "from the uttermost parts of the earth" (Jer. 31:8, ASV). The land to which they are gathered is identified as the ancient "land of Judah" (Jer 31:23) and the "mountains of Samaria" (Jer. 31:5). The city is historic Jerusalem which shall be "built to the LORD from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner" (Jer. 31:38-40). There is reference also to other cities of the historic land which shall exist and be inhabited by worshipers of Jehovah (Jer. 31:23-24). There the chosen people will enjoy once more their historic blessings of "the goodness of the LORD" in "wheat" and "wine" and "oil" and the "young of the flock" (Jer. 31:12-14).