"A New Covenant”

“Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses’ face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold.” (2 Corinthians 3:7-12 ESV)

It seems that we don’t hear a lot about the “New Covenant” today. We assume that everyone knows that we are no longer under the Mosaic Covenant, see Exodus 19:5-8, where God gave Moses the 613 laws that all of Israel said they would obey. But all too often, we forget what God said to Israel in Deuteronomy 28, where Moses restates the Law given by God. In verses 1-15, he states, “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you will obey the Lord your God”.  And in verses 15-68, God outlines all the curses that the nation of Israel can expect if they do not obey the Lord. Verse 15 “But it shall come about, if you will not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.” It’s known as the blessings and curses of the Mosaic Covenant, where God places the outcome of His blessings on the condition of Israel’s obedience. If they keep His commandments, like they said they would in Exodus 19:8, then God would richly bless them, but if they did not keep His commandments, then He would send curse after curse upon them.

Of course, this is known as a Conditional Covenant, meaning that Israel had to keep God’s commands to receive His blessings. It was something that they had to do to keep God’s blessings and to avoid His curses. When we look at Israel's history, we see this covenant in practice. When Israel obeyed God’s Laws, they were indeed blessed. When they disobeyed God’s Laws, then curse after curse came upon them. If you read Deuteronomy, you will see that many times Israel came under the rule of other nations during the Judges period, and that the multiple deportations they suffered under Assyria and Babylonia were the fulfillment of the curses of the Mosaic Covenant.

Paul, in Chapter 3 of this letter, draws a contrast between this Conditional Covenant, the Old Testament Law or the Mosaic Law, and the “New Covenant” God has made with anyone who will accept the finished work of Jesus on the cross. Where Jesus paid the price for our sins. The New Covenant is Not Conditional; we don’t have to keep a list of commands to keep God’s blessings. When we believe and accept God’s gift of eternal life through faith in Jesus (Eph. 2:8-10), the covenant is completed between God and us.  Paul spends the entire chapter showing how much greater this new covenant is than the old covenant. Paul and the other writers of the New Testament letters teach that Salvation and all earthly blessings that we receive are NOT based on our obedience to God’s Word, but based on the fact that Jesus fulfilled all the terms of this new covenant.

However, some in churches today teach that we still need to obey certain Mosaic laws to receive God’s blessings. For example, some teach that we as New Covenant believers still need to keep the 10 Commandments to receive God’s blessings. Commandments such as “keep the Sabbath day holy” (of course, we changed that to Sunday, not Saturday, which is really the Sabbath), the requirement to tithe taught in the Old Testament, and many other of the 613 laws. But they seem to pick and choose which of those Old Covenant laws we as New Covenant believers must follow, or we will be missing out on God’s blessings.

I don’t see that taught anywhere in the letters that were written by the Apostles directly to New Covenant believers, those of us who came to faith after the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. God has given every New Covenant believer the Holy Spirit and Jesus Himself to “indwell” in us. We no longer need the Old Testament laws for us to know how to bring honor and glory to God. We have the Spirit of God living in us every moment of every day to guide us in our new life in Christ.

We do not need any of the 613 Old Testament laws to direct us on how we can bring God’s blessings into our lives. We have all the blessings that we could ever ask for in our Savior. God loves us, and we are precious in His sight because of what Christ has done, not because of our obedience to a list of rules.

So, as we read Chapter 3, remember that Paul shows how much more marvelous and glorious our New Covenant is than the Mosaic Covenant. I hope we always remember that receiving God’s blessings is not based on our faithfulness to following rules but on God’s grace freely given to us because of what our Savior has done.

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"