What is the New Covenant?

It could hardly be said that the old covenant of law was established upon promises at all, though there were certain promises connected with it. It was established rather upon a bargain, in which Israel undertook in all things to obey, and God guaranteed certain blessings conditional upon their obedience. The bargain was hardly concluded before it was broken by Israel making the golden calf. The fact that the new covenant is established upon promises, that those promises are God's, and that they are better than anything proposed under the law, at once sharply distinguishes it from the old.

Jeremiah follows, predicting that these new things will be established, not on the old covenant of law but on a new covenant of grace. Let Jeremiah 31:31-34 be read and note how again and again, "I will," appears, rather than the "If you will" of Exodus 19:8. In this New Covenant God is going to act according to His own thoughts and purposes in grace, based on the work of Christ.

There are three distinct parts of this new covenant: (1) "I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts" — that implies a new nature, new birth; (2) "They shall no longer teach each one his neighbour… but they shall all know me." In Hebrews 8 it is "know me in themselves" — that is conscious knowledge: we cannot get beyond that; and (3) "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" — that is the knowledge of God revealed in grace. The law in our hearts, the knowledge of God who is love, and "no more consciousness of sins" — such are the terms of the new covenant. Are not all these blessings ours today by the Spirit?

It consists of the new birth, the forgiveness of sins, and the giving of the Spirit of God. Clearly none of these things can be obtained by merit or effort.

The disciples do not bind themselves with a covenant of death to keep the law, as their fathers had done, but the Lord Jesus enters into death, shedding His precious blood, so that they, and all who trust in Him, may receive the blessings of the new covenant.

This is an unconditional covenant that God has declared He will make with the houses of Judah and Israel: He will put His laws into their minds and write them on their hearts; He will be their God, and will be merciful toward their unrighteousness, and remember their sins no more (Jeremiah 31:31-34). The foundation for this was laid in the cross… From which we gather that though the making of this covenant with Israel is still future, the principle of it, namely, that of sovereign grace, is that on which God is now acting as setting out the terms on which He is with His people, the Lord Jesus being the Mediator, through whom all the blessing is secured.

Paul and his fellow workers had been made competent ministers of the gospel, which he here calls "[the] new covenant" ministry. The definite article does not occur in the underlying Greek text, showing that it is the character of the new covenant that is being referred to. The new covenant is not made with the assembly or with Christian believers, but God in His grace is working now according to the spirit of it.

We thus see that the new covenant was not an afterthought, brought in when the old covenant failed. God knew the end from the beginning. The new covenant was in His mind from the very first. "He does away with the first in order to establish the second" (Heb. 10:9)… Hence the word new does not merely mean new as opposed to old, but that the new displaced the old — they cannot stand side by side!