The Old Testament and the New Covenant Part 27
” ‘Just as I swore in the time of Noah that I would never again let a flood cover the earth, so now I swear that I will never again be angry and punish you. For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even then My faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken,’ says the LORD, who has mercy on you” (Isaiah 54:9-10).
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love” (I John 4:18).
The book of Isaiah is probably the clearest presentation of the gospel in the Old Testament. We will explore two of those prophetic passages, today and tomorrow.
Here in Isaiah 54, we have a beautiful preview of one aspect of the coming new covenant; God will never be angry with you or punish you. God swore this with the same force as His promise to never flood the earth again. And you can take both of these promises to the bank. After the flood, God swore that He “would never again let a flood cover the earth.” And in the coming “covenant of blessing that will never be broken” (the new covenant), God swore that He would “never again be angry with us or punish us.” All of this is accomplished by “God’s faithful love.”
This is so revolutionary. There is such a fear among believers of God’s anger, God’s judgment, and God’s punishment. But it is not going to happen. Not on my authority, but on the authority of the gospel. And the faithful love of God, shed abroad to us, is why this will not happen. Look closely at the I John 4 passage. The whole chapter is a celebration of the love of God. And one of the outcomes of this incredible love is:
“By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love” (I John 4:17-18).
Will Jesus undergo any punishment at the judgment? No, and because “as He is, so also are we in this world”, neither will we. We “have confidence in the day of judgment”, we have no fear in the day of judgment, “because fear involves punishment.” And we have it on God’s sworn promise that He will “never again be angry and punish you” (Isaiah 54:9).
What a promise and provision of the new covenant! Our friend, David Moss, summarizes these Isaiah verses so well. “When God swore to never flood the earth again, He placed a sign in the sky, a rainbow, as a reminder of His promise. When God swore to never be angry with us or punish us under the New Covenant, He placed a sign in the sky, the cross, as a reminder of His promise.”
The blood of Jesus is the seal of the prophesied covenant of blessing, because Jesus was there from the beginning!