We have seen thus far that any thorough study of the covenant(s) that God has made with humanity must begin with the primeval covenant that is as everlasting as God Himself. This everlasting covenant of love has always existed within the Trinity and extends out from the Trinity to embrace all of God's creation. The divine adaptation of this everlasting covenant to meet the human need created by sin has been variously termed the covenant of redemption, covenant of grace, and everlasting gospel. The covenants God made with His chosen people (e.g., Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel) were expressions of this everlasting covenant or everlasting gospel. The blessings and stipulations of this covenant/gospel were never intended to be hoarded by their original recipients, but rather to be shared with the entire world.
We must now turn our attention to the basis of the debate over God's covenant(s). Jeremiah prophesied that God would make "a new covenant" with His people (Jer. 31:31-34). The New Testament took up this theme and for the first time spoke of an "old covenant." Many Bible students have interpreted the "old covenant" and "new covenant" as terms referring exclusively to the Old Testament and New Testament, or, even more narrowly, to the difference between the terms of the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai and the terms of the gospel proclaimed in the New Testament. There is a widespread belief that the terms of salvation proclaimed in the old covenant are qualitatively different from the terms of salvation proclaimed in the new covenant. Hence, when the New Testament speaks apparently disparaging words about the old covenant, some take this as evidence that God abandoned His old covenant and replaced it with the true gospel He presented in the New Testament. But is this the case? What, exactly, is the new covenant? It is clearly defined by God Himself in both the Old and New Testaments in nearly identical words. As expressed in Jeremiah, with very minor adaptations in Hebrews, the new covenant reads:
"The time is coming," declares the Lord, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the Lord. "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." (Jer. 31:31-34; cf. Heb. 8:8-12)
To understand the contrast between the old and new covenants, we must identify exactly what the new covenant is, then examine the scriptural passages that compare and contrast the two covenants.
The DNA of the Everlasting Gospel Expressed in the New Covenant
When Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, he protected himself from assassins by employing doubles who looked so much like him that no assassin would be sure whom he was killing. When Saddam was captured by American soldiers during the second Gulf War, no one could be sure it was really him until his DNA had been checked. Every human being's DNA is unique. When American scientists were able to match the DNA of the captured Iraqi with Saddam's, they knew they had the right man.
The new covenant contains specific DNA markers that enable us to detect its presence wherever it occurs in Scripture. In His own description of His new covenant, God imprinted these unique markers in His new covenant in the form of four specific promises or provisions He made to redeem human beings from sin and restore them to the eternal inheritance He planned for them at creation.
Promise/Provision 1
"I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts" (Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10). The theological term for this DNA marker is sanctification, a righteousness from God imparted to the believer by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:4). From the moment He created humankind in His image, God's goal for us has always been that we would be holy as He is holy, and we would reflect His character of love in all of our relationships (Lev. 20:7; Matt. 7:12; 1 Pet. 1:15-16). When God created Adam in His own image, He wrote His law in Adam's heart. Since God created him "very good," we can assume that Adam was naturally inclined toward love and obedience to God (Gen. 1:26-27, 31). Adam's sin subjected his descendants to sinful natures bent to sin and hostility toward God and His law, a condition they cannot change on their own (Rom. 5:12; 8:7; Jer. 13:23; Rom. 3:10-18).
Human attempts to change this nature lead to an externalized religious experience, a legalistic compliance that is not born of faith or motivated by love. The resulting obedience may be carved into the granite of a stony heart, but it is not ingrained in the person's very nature. This results in the person "having a form of godliness but denying its power" (2 Tim. 3:5). But such formal religion is as much an expression of the sinful nature as is the most flagrant disobedience. Both are conditions we cannot change on our own. So when God commands, "Keep my decrees and follow them," He always includes the empowering promise, "I am the Lord, who makes you holy" (Lev. 20:8). Through the operation of His Spirit, God works to write His laws on our hearts that we might be "eager [and able] to do what is good," even as Adam once was (Ezek. 36:27; Phil. 2:13; Titus 2:14).
Promise/Provision 2
"I will be their God and they will be my people" (Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10). This provision expresses the bottom-line goal of every covenant God ever made with humanity-reconciliation with God. "At the center of covenant revelation as its constant refrain is the assurance 'I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.'"[1] What matters most to God is relationship-so much so that Jesus equated eternal life with knowing God (John 17:3).[2] He does not desire a universe filled with robots that do His will unthinkingly and dispassionately. He wants quality relationships. He created us so we could experience a relationship with Him based on love and trust and loyalty. Sin has estranged that relationship, and by sinning we have forfeited our rightful place in His eternal kingdom. "Be reconciled to God" constitutes the great appeal of the gospel and the sole requisite for eternal life (2 Cor. 5:20; cf. Isa. 45:22; 1 John 5:12).
Promise/Provision 3
"No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest" (Jer. 33:34; Heb. 8:11). This provision highlights the forward-looking, eschatological nature of God's covenants with humanity.[3] They anticipate the return of Christ and the establishment of His eternal kingdom in which all will indeed have God's law written in their hearts; in which it finally can be said that "now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them" and "they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God" (Rev. 21:3); and in which indeed "all will know me, from the least of them to the greatest." We live in the "now-not yet" era in which the promises are in the process of being fulfilled. But the ultimate fulfillment awaits Christ's second coming and the establishment of His eternal kingdom. Until that day every believer is commissioned with "the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth" and is charged to participate in carrying out the great commission to "go and make disciples of all nations" (Rev. 14:6; Matt. 28:19-20).
This DNA marker of the new covenant constitutes the mission of all believers to seek and share the knowledge of God, whom to truly know is to have eternal life (Jer. 9:23-24; John 17:3). To a world that does not know Him (John 17:25), "God...through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him...among those who are being saved and those who are perishing" (2 Cor. 2:14-15). It is not simply a list of religious truths, but "the knowledge of Him," that God's covenant people are commissioned to spread throughout the world. This calls for Christians to share more than intellectual knowledge of God. We must demonstrate God's everlasting love by deeds of sacrificial love: "'He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?' declares the Lord" (Jer. 22:16).[4]
Many believe that while the old covenant was made with Israel, excluding Gentiles, the new covenant was made with Gentiles. But the texts in both Jeremiah and Hebrews are addressed to Israel: "'The time is coming,' declares the Lord, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah....This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,' declares the Lord" (Jer. 31:31, 33; Heb. 8:8, 10). In the New Testament era as in the Old, God entrusted His covenant to Israel, intending that they would share it with the world. When Gentiles became believers, they were no longer considered Gentiles but part of Israel. "Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. ... If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:7, 29). And it is precisely in this third promise/provision identity marker of His new covenant that God commissions His new covenant people with their evangelistic mission as "the fragrance of the knowledge of Him" until He comes-envisioning a day when God's covenant people will have completed their evangelistic mission, a day when this gospel of the kingdom will have been preached in the whole world and the end will have come (Matt. 24:14), a day indeed when "they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest" in the restored kingdom of God.
Promise/Provision 4
"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more" (Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:12). The theological term for this DNA marker of the new covenant is justification, God's gracious act in Christ to remove our sins and grant us a right standing before Him, imputing a righteousness to us that is not of our own making: the righteousness of Christ (Rom. 4:5-8; Phil. 3:8-9). Even before creation, when sin was only a possibility but not a reality, provision for forgiveness was already made in God's plan should the need arise--"This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time" (2 Tim. 1:9).[5] The atoning act that had long been anticipated through Old Testament types and prophecies came to fulfillment through Christ's passion and resurrection (Gen. 3:15; Isa. 53:5-10; Heb. 9:19-26).[6] "This is the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matt. 26:28). In this single act of Christ, "through the blood of the everlasting covenant," all the covenants God ever made with humankind meet and merge as one with His great everlasting covenant of love (Heb. 13:20 NKJV).
Why This Particular Order?
At this point, an important question naturally arises: why list sanctification as the first promise of the new covenant and justification as the last? Some may even be concerned that this ordering might somehow be a perversion of the gospel. But the answer is simple: for whatever reason, this is the very order God used in presenting the terms of the new covenant in Scripture.
It must be assumed that God either had no particular purpose in ordering them as He did, or that He started the list with the ultimate goal of His plan of salvation-the restoration of His image in the hearts, minds, and characters of His people-and then perhaps worked back through the steps that result in that final restoration.
In William Shea's commentary on Daniel, he discusses chapters 7-8-9 of Daniel in reverse order, 9-8-7. He explains this reversal this way: "One reason for the literary order has to do with Semitic thought processes. Modern western European thinking reasons from cause to effect; ancient Semitic people commonly reasoned from effect back to cause."[7]
Paul himself followed this pattern when he told the Corinthians, "But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God" (1 Cor. 6:11).
Tracing the New Covenant DNA Through Salvation History
These four explicitly stated promises/provisions-sanctification, reconciliation, mission, and justification-are the DNA markers of the new covenant, establishing it as a thoroughly grace-based, gospel-bearing, and mission-directed covenant. These identity markers constitute the everlasting gospel and are embedded in the everlasting covenant as it is expressed in the covenant of redemption. Once this is recognized, God's various covenants with humankind can be examined in a search for these DNA markers. Any covenant in which they might be found would certainly be invested with the same grace-based salvation principles that characterize the original covenant of our God who does not change.
As we will see, a careful study of God's covenant(s) reveals that every covenant God made with humanity bears the imprint of the new covenant DNA. In the covenants with Adam and Noah the evidence is strongly implied. With all the others it is explicitly evident. Moreover, the Old Testament is saturated with clusters of the four promises/provisions of the new covenant/everlasting gospel, with all four provisions grouped within a few verses or chapters of each other, or within thematically-related passages (see chart 1--"The DNA of the Covenant[s]"--in appendix D).
With this foundation laid, we are now prepared to evaluate the divine covenant that has been most misunderstood and has received the most critical evaluation by many Bible students-the covenant God gave His people Israel at Sinai, referred to interchangeably by many as the Mosaic covenant, the Sinaitic covenant, and the old covenant.
Summary
As described by God Himself, the new covenant contains four specific promises/provisions that serve as DNA identity markers of the new covenant. The theological terms equivalent to these four new covenant promises/provisions are sanctification, reconciliation, mission, and justification. Once this has been ascertained, the groundwork has been laid for evaluating every covenant God initiated with humankind to determine its relation, by comparison or contrast, to the new covenant.
Notes: