The New Covenant in Christian theology is a unique voluntary agreement between God and the individual Christian containing all the rights, duties, and obligations of each party. The individual had to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah and repent of sin (Acts 2:38). Persons entering into this relationship become the elect and saints—the members of the body of Christ (I Peter 2:9). Collectively, according to the apostle Paul, they became spiritual Jews (Colossians 3:11; Romans 2:28-29) and the new "Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16).
The understanding of the early Church of God was that under the terms of the New Covenant, with a promise of an "eternal inheritance" (Hebrews 9:15), individuals, rather than a national ethnic group, became children of Abraham and heirs of the promise (Galatians 3:29). The apostles came to believe that God extended the New Covenant to all peoples including Jews and Gentiles, all races, and all classes. They regarded entry into this New Covenant relationship with God as a very personal and individual matter. Entry into the New Covenant relationship with God made a person a part of a distinctive set, or class, of individuals. God sanctified these individuals, that is, he set them apart for a holy purpose as God’s own people. For the Christian in the postmodern world, an understanding of both the Mosaic and the New Covenants is not only critical to understand the history of the Church but also to comprehend the meaning of the Christian faith.
The New Covenant, unlike the Siniatic with its materialistic national tones, consisted of a spiritual agreement between God and the individual. The apostles regarded the New Covenant as necessary due to a fatal flaw in the Siniatic Covenant. This flaw was the underlying basis of the failure of the nation of Israel to internalize God’s laws and to perform its duties thereunder. The people of Israel did not perform their part by reason of their basic human disposition, often called human nature, to do otherwise (Hebrews 8:7-10). Like all humans they were prone to sin. This fatal flaw had to do with their lack of long-term capacity, motivation, aspiration, and desire to trust and obey God (Romans 8:7).
The apostles taught that in recognition of this flaw, God planned a New and better Covenant to replace the Mosaic Covenant alliance. The people of Israel, like all human beings, were capable of obeying YHWH the God of the Mosaic Covenant when they were of the mind and heart to do so (Deuteronomy 30:11). Yet, even at the inception of the Mosaic Covenant, the nation of Israel was not predisposed to exercise the necessary commitment and endurance to live by its terms. Notice the Eternal’s lament of the way of his bride as narrated by Moses, "Oh that they had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandment always, that it may be well with them and with their sons forever!" (Deuteronomy 5:29 NASB). She did not possess the deep inner character necessary to be a faithful, loving wife and YHWH knew it.
The apostle Paul explained this phenomenon to the church congregation at Rome in less ambiguous terms. He wrote: "For the mind set on the flesh is death but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God" (Romans 8:6-8 NASB). All humans, including the people of ancient Israel, were in Paul’s terms "in the flesh." That is, without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit their humanness dominated, governed, and overpowered their whole being. For Paul, the church as the new people of God did not suffer this malady as they had been enabled through the indwelling of the Spirit of God to command their lives in accord with God’s way of life.
The epistle to the Hebrews, wherein the fundamental nature of the two covenants was distinguished, records that "the covenant of which he [Jesus of Nazareth] is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises" (Hebrews 8:6 NIV). That is, the New Covenant was seen as not only superior to the Mosaic Covenant but based upon better promises as well.
Page last edited: 02/02/06 06:35 PM
starting web/internet resource by the
