The New Covenant

English Standard Version Chapter 31

Behold

(NRSV)

A New Covenant

31 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.

We have been talking about the mass exodus from Egypt to the promised land. Think about last week and how the people sinned against Moses and God when they complained about their situation. God took them by the hand. This literally meant that He had married them.

Commentary on the Old Testament Ch. 30 and 31. Israel’s Deliverance and Glorious Condition in the Future

אֶת־בְּרִיתִי

Commentary on the Old Testament Ch. 30 and 31. Israel’s Deliverance and Glorious Condition in the Future

“which my covenant,” i.e., which covenant of mine. “They” stands emphatically in contrast with “though I” in the following circumstantial clause, which literally means, “but I have married them to myself,” or, “I was their husband.”

God joined with them in such a way that He took full responsibility for their future. Think about all the times that they disobeyed his commands; the times they spoke out against the vision of the promised land. In many ways it sounds like a marriage doesn’t it. When we get married often times it is a new love that is not built on a solid foundation. It is the struggles that often builds a much better relationship.

But God says days are coming. When I will make a new Covenant, not like the Old Covenant that I made with your fathers. What does this mean? The Old Covenant that God made with the people through Moses-God took them and led them out of bondage. The Old Covenant was like the courtship as God asked them to follow; He used Moses to draw them to himself. Through the forty years in the wilderness he molded them to himself. In other-words salvation is not a one moment event. We can have a traumatic experience but it is only the beginning. God will make His covenant with us and write it on our hearts. This takes time.

The New Covenant begins by God joining us to Himself in marriage. The reason for a new covenant was not because God changed his mind about the first or Old Covenant, but that the New Covenant was necessary because we broke with the covenant.

Think about any times when a husband and wife break the covenant between each other. It often takes a renewal of vows to patch things up and it always takes time. More than anything a lasting growing relationship requires that our relationships be engraved in our hearts. That is what God is calling His new Covenant.

But this last verse, (NRSV)

34 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.

The world seems like such a mess; could we actually find a time when all will know the Lord? This seems so unbelievable, but what I find is that there is a great difference between knowing and acknowledging what we know; know and believing.

For those who know and believe, He will forgive.