Category: Old Testament

The Old Testament and the New Covenant   Part 2

Taking off from yesterday, remember that the Old Testament is largely a description of the old covenant.  From Exodus chapter 19 to the end of the Old Testament (technically until the death of Jesus), the Jews lived under the old covenant arrangement.

The book of Hebrews in the New Testament paints a clear picture of the contrast between the two covenants; the old and the new.  Over several chapters, the author unpacks the idea that the new covenant brought to us by Jesus is better than the old because …

Jesus brings a better hope (Hebrews 6:19-7:19),

Jesus is a better priest (Hebrews 7:21-8:2),

Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant (Hebrews 8:4-13),

Jesus is a better sacrifice (Hebrews 9:11-28),

Jesus is a better offering for sin (Hebrews 10:1-16), and

Jesus’ new covenant is built on better promises (Hebrews chapter 11).

The author summarizes the fate of the old covenant in this way, “But now Jesus has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.  For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.  For finding fault with them God says, ‘Behold days are coming when I will effect a new covenant’ … When God said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete.  But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.”  (Hebrews 8:6-8,13).

“God made the first covenant [the old covenant] obsolete.”  What do you think about this concluding thought?  What do you think about the finality of the old covenant being declared obsolete?  Not only is the new covenant superior to the old (from the list above), but the old has actually gone away.

I like the paraphrase of The Message Bible for verse 13, “By coming up with a new plan, a new covenant between God and His people, God put the old plan on the shelf.  And there it stays, gathering dust.”  That is quite a visual of the end of the old covenant.

Do you agree with that conclusion?  How does this make you feel about the old covenant?  How does this make you feel about the Old Testament?  Before you go too far down this road, let’s come back tomorrow and look at a comparison of the two covenants from the apostle Paul.

Introduction

In thinking about the Old Testament, let’s start with the word “testament”.  A testament is an arrangement.  Someone’s “last will and testament” describes the “arrangement” they desire for their affairs after they die.  Similarly, the Old Testament is describing the old arrangement between God and man.  This old arrangement was in place from Exodus chapter 19 until the death of Christ on the cross.  This old arrangement is called the Old Covenant or The Law.

Jumping to the New Testament, we see the unfolding of a new arrangement between God and man.  This new arrangement, called the New Covenant, went into effect with the death and resurrection of Jesus.  The torn veil in the holy of holies in the temple at the hour of Christ’s death signified the end of the old covenant and the start of the new.  Jesus told us ahead of time that the new covenant would be initiated by His death.  “And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood’ “ (Luke 22:20).

In the age of now, believers live under the provisions and promises of the new covenant.  A few of these are the promise of a new birth, a new identity, a new heart, a new Spirit, a new purity, a new nature, a new self, a new power, and a new freedom.  We receive all of this new by believing the gospel message of Jesus Christ.  “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).

We passed from death to life when we believed, accepted, put our faith in, the gospel message of Jesus.  And what is the gospel message of Jesus?  In its shortest form, it is believing that Jesus died in our place for our sins.

So with all this new going on, what happened to the old covenant?  Did the new covenant replace the old?  Is any part of the old covenant still in effect for us as new covenant believers?  Has the old covenant gone away, come to an end?

In this series, we will explore the role of the Old Testament in our new covenant experience.  Do we just cast it aside, useless in our new covenant world?  Do we seek to obey its laws and precepts?  Or do we land somewhere in-between?  Or is there even an in-between?  We will make a start next time by looking at what happened to the old covenant when Jesus and the new covenant appeared on the scene.

“But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.  And he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:2-3).

For many years, this verse summarized my approach to the Christian life.  I wanted to be this tree.  I wanted to delight in God’s law.  I wanted to be fruitful.  I wanted to prosper.  Then I began to understand all that Christ provided for us and to us in the New Covenant.  I soon began to realize my “being a tree” days were over.

The tree analogy with its meditation, its law, and its prosperity promise was an Old Covenant picture.  It was behavior focused and consequence based.  Under God’s new arrangement, ushered in by Jesus’ death and resurrection, you and I are no longer free-standing trees.  So what are we?

“I [Jesus] am the true vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).  We are no longer trees.  We are branches! And the difference is huge.

As a tree, your source of life is in the world around you.  You tap into the rain, into the sunlight, into the soil.  The result is you standing on your own, built on the nutrients you gather.  You are all alone, standing tall along streams of water.

But as a branch, your life is now totally and completely dependent on the vine.  There is literally no life for a branch outside of its connection to the vine.  And the vine you are securely attached to is the True Vine; Jesus Christ.  No more growing based on your self-effort, how well you are keeping His law.  He is now your complete sufficiency.

And the proof of this all-sufficient Vine literally feeding His life into you is the last line in our verse, “For apart from Me you can do nothing.”  Everything we do, everything we are really, is dependent on our union with the Vine.  Jesus did not say that apart from Him we would do things poorly or not very well or struggle for success.  He said, “We can do NOTHING”!

This branch-to-vine connection with Jesus is not an option that comes and goes.  It is who we are.  Abiding in Him is not an “if” statement.  It is a fact.  You ARE “abiding in Him and He in you” because this is what Christ accomplished at the cross.  He made you a branch.  You did not attach yourself.  You cannot unattach yourself.  Based on His work on the cross and your belief in what Christ did for you, He made you a branch.  An intimately connected branch, a very child of God.

Finally, the church is a brand new entity under the New Covenant.  And the branches and the True Vine are such a beautiful picture of this.  We, the church, are the branches; growing together in a beautiful menagerie, all inseparably connected to the Vine.  The Vine is your life.  Soak it up and the fruit will flow.

An area of contrast between the old covenant of law and the new covenant of grace is the order of events in the believer’s life.  Under the old covenant, life was “do and receive”.  If you do X, then you will receive Y from God.

But this old arrangement of “do and receive” is no longer in effect after the cross.  The writer to the Hebrews calls the old covenant arrangement “obsolete, growing old, and ready to disappear” (Hebrews 8:13).  Paul proclaims that “it is being brought to an end” (II Corinthians 3:10).  But we really hate to give it up.  Why?

The do and receive just sounds so right to our human ears.  Our parents, our teachers, our coaches, other authority figures in our lives drilled this into our heads.  You behave in a certain way – good or bad – and you will receive the reward or the punishment.  It is ingrained into our old nature.

But this order is completely flipped on its head in the new covenant of grace.  The first order of business is “to believe”.  “Therefore they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’  Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’ ” (John 6:28-29).  Or said another way, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24).

So the first move is for us to believe something.  First, we must believe “in the One that God has sent”.  We must believe that Jesus Christ was the substitute for us when He died on a cross in our place.

When we first believe, we immediately go to step two, and I mean immediately!  In step two, “we receive”.  We receive forgiveness for our sins, we receive the gift of eternal life, we receive a new identity that comes with all kinds of new; a new nature, a new Spirit, a new heart, a new purity, a new self, a new disposition, a new life, and a new power over sin.  That is a lot of receiving.  And it has nothing to do with our behavior, nothing to do with our “do”.  Any change in behavior has not even happened yet.  It is all a free gift of grace.

Now after we “believe” and “receive”, then and only then does the “do” come into play.  This is the new covenant.  We “believe, receive, and do” in that order.  We live inside out.  We live out of the righteousness that Christ has put in us.  We live out of the new self, “a self created in the likeness of God, a self created in righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

Here is the explanation that permeates the New Testament letters, “This is what Christ has done for you and to you.  He has saved you and He has made you into a new creation with His divine nature inside you.  You now have a power to “do” that was not available to the Old Testament followers of God.”

Our “believe” is not just the one time belief for salvation.  The Christian walk is also informed by “believe”.  That is why faith is such an integral part of the apostles’ discussion of the Christian life.  Faith is required because I will experience the indwelling Christ living His life through me only if I believe His promises to do so are true.  Believing He will, and does, live in me empowers me to live like Christ.  Our “believe and receive” energizes our “do”.

This distinction is so important to understand.  You are not working, like God’s people of the old covenant, to earn God’s approval, acceptance, and blessing.  You are no longer under the “do and receive”.  You are under a new arrangement.  And it is an arrangement that is so FREEING.  The pressure is off.  The death of Jesus worked, it accomplished the Father’s plan to restore you into a right relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It is a relationship based purely on God’s gift of grace.

The pressure to live up to something in off.  Rather than “live up”, you are now free to “live out” of the righteousness of Christ placed in you at your new birth.  It’s in there!  Allow it to shine forth as you “believe, receive, and do”.

We wrote last time about the success and prosperity promises under the old covenant.  Remember, the old covenant, the old arrangement between God and man was behavior focused and consequence based.  If you do X, God will do Y.  If you obey the law, you will be blessed.  If you fall short, you will be cursed.

The gist of this arrangement is recorded for us in the Old Testament over and over.  “So keep the words of this covenant to do them, that you may prosper in all that you do” (Deuteronomy 29:9).  Or “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night … and in whatever he does he prospers” (Psalm 1:2-3).  And of course our verse from last time, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success” (Joshua 1:8).

Because we like the promise of success and because we like to think that what we do will open up the blessings of heaven, we often bring these concepts into our new covenant thinking.  It is a dangerous, mixed-covenant message.  It looks like this, “Yes, let’s leave the ‘law’ behind.  Let’s focus on Jesus and His commands (new covenant) and we will receive the blessing and prosperity God promised (old covenant).”  What exactly did God promise regarding our life circumstances in the new covenant?

The ultimate promise of Jesus is His presence, not success and prosperity.  First off, Jesus promised to come live inside us.  Talk about presence!  “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:20).  Just like Christ is in the Father, we are in Christ and Christ is in us.  How much closer can we get?  This is over-the-top presence.

This presence is experienced by us as Christ is literally living His life through us.  “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Here is another beautiful promise of Christ’s presence.  “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Colossians 3:3-4).  Again, this is presence at its best, “hidden with Christ in God”.  And it will never end.  “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

Here is a verse about prosperity and presence together.  “Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).  In the realm of money’s hold on our lives, we are to be content rather than grasping for more.  I don’t see any promise here of, “Be content because more money is coming your way.”  No, the promise is, “Be content because I will never leave you.”  Christ’s presence in your life is assured FOREVER!  And, I might add, Christ’s presence in your life is more valuable than earthly prosperity.

There are many more verses we could add about Christ’s promise of His presence when we go through suffering and the trials we face in this life.  Let us summarize with one more verse, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

This really sums up the idea that the circumstances of this world will be troublesome.  Smooth sailing is never the promise for the child of God.  But in the midst of it all, the incredible presence of Jesus; in us, around us, alongside us, is a promise that will never fail.