How bout the New Covenant?  Love the new covenant.  Its the testimony of Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is the testimony of the Father.  Jesus Christ is the Father giving us His Will and testament.  The new covenant helps gives the church shape and form.  Well what’s the new covenant all about?  When we say there’s a new covenant, we are making the first old, and saying it’s passed away.  Whats the significance of the old passing away, and the new replacing it?  What’s that all about?  

Sometimes in our struggle to explain God we miss the mark because we use worldly things that are from man’s perspective to try and explain things that pertain to God.  Well covenant is one of those things.  Covenant has largely been taught as a contract.  It’s been made to sound like deal making.  Like the game show lets make a deal. 

A contract is a promissory note.  It’s there to give force or validity to something thats promised.  Man can lie and man can change their minds, so the contract, or the promissory note, is there to give assurance that what is said will be performed.  It’s there to give assurance to the parties involved because man can lie, and man can change their mind.  

Listen, God is not a man that He should lie; neither is He the Son of man, that He should change His mind about what He’s promised.  God isnt fickle.  Gods yay is yay and His nay is nay.  God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.   Its man who needs a contract to give their word force, not God.  Gods perspective of covenant isnt akin to a contract.  Its a deeply personal thing to Him.  When God thinks of covenant He thinks of whats in His heart.  He thinks of Himself as the surety.  He thinks of the love in His heart for people, not a contract written on letterhead.   

So what is the new covenant in the eyes of God?  

Heb 9:15  And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
Heb 9:16  For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
Heb 9:17  For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator lives.

When a person dies in this world they have something called a will.  The will is the testament of the person, and their wishes.  It’s called their last will and testament because it’s not read or made of force until their death.  The author of hebrews describes the ushering in of the new covenant in the same way you would describe someone’s last will and testament.  Just as a persons last will and testament is read upon their death.  Jesus shedding His blood is the declaration of God’s will and testament.  Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant.  His death is a testimony to us.  God who at sundry times and diverse manners spoke to us by the fathers and the prophets in times past, has spoken to us in these last days through the death of His Son Jesus.  

Hebrews 12:24 says the blood of Jesus speaks better things than the blood of Abel.   

The death of Jesus declares something to us.  It tells us God’s wishes.  Jesus’ death on the cross testifies that God’s will is for the sin and death in the world, to be sent away from you.  Acts 20:28 says God Himself shed His blood for you.  God prepared Himself a body in Jesus, to offer his body to be broken for you.  He shed his blood not only to testify to you; that His desire is to offer Himself and His life for you.  But He shed His blood to also testify the thing He willed in His heart; to perfect you once for all time from death, by providing Himself as a lamb, has been performed.  The blood of Jesus declares Gods will to remove death from you is of force on account of Him dying.  

Heb 6:13  For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself,
Heb 6:14  Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.
Heb 6:15  And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
Heb 6:16  For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife.
Heb 6:17  Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:
Heb 6:18  That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:

A covenant is a promise.  Its the declaration of an oath.  Its God testifying to man.  Covenant is God promising something to man that He is taking upon Himself to make happen. 

When God could sware by nothing greater, He swore by Himself.  When God could give no greater assurance, that He will bring about the eternal life He promised from the beginning, He swore by Himself.  There’s nothing God can promise you that’s greater than Him promising you Himself.  When God thought of what can give His promise force, He thought nothing carries more weight than me shedding my own blood.  When God could swear by nothing greater, He swore by Himself that He will be the God we need.  He offered His body on the cross to obtain eternal redemption for us.  God shed His blood to be a testimony of His will.  The blood of the new covenant testifies of Gods desire to be our God.  His blood says to us “You need salvation from death.  You need peace, and love, and joy.  You need to be set apart from sin and set apart unto eternal life.  Promising, I promise you.  I am your shield and your buckler.  I am your exceedingly great reward.  I have shed my own blood to deliver you from the pangs of death.  

The New Covenant is God testifying to the world, His will is to deliver us from the pangs of death, and His blood testifies He has done it. 

What’s the difference between the old and the new covenant?  Why did the new come, and why is the law of Moses called the old covenant.  

Hebrews 8:13 says In that he says, A new covenant, he has made the first old. Now that which decays and waxes old is ready to vanish away.  

New doesnt mean different.  Its not called the new covenant because the promise is different.  The apostle Paul says in Galatians the old covenant wasnt contrary to the promise of God.  It didn’t disannul the promise made to Abraham because it spoke of the same promise.  Paul speaking of the old covenant in Ephesians calls it the covenant of promise.  Gods been reaffirming the same promise through the covenants given to the Fathers and the prophets since the beginning. 

Heb 11:13  says These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

All the guys in the Old Testament saw the promise off in the distance of time.  They saw the promise from afar through the covenants God gave them.  Jesus says Abraham saw his day and rejoiced.  Abraham saw God would circumcise his flesh from the body of death, through Jesus.  Moses looked into the law, and the picture the works of the law painted, and he saw the promise of the Spirit, and he saw the promised seed.  

But, in these last days God has brought the promise to light in Jesus.  

2nd Timothy 1 says the promise of life that was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began, was made manifest by the appearing of Jesus, and him abolishing death and bringing life and immortality to light.  

1st John says a new commandment i give you that isnt new because its been from the beginning. The new covenant isnt God making a different promise.  It’s the Father, Son, and Spirit bringing to light the promise thats been from the beginning.  Its called the new covenant because the promise thats been from the beginning, that Moses saw from afar in the law, has been brought to light, and we see the substance of the promise in Jesus.  The power death had over us has been abolished.  God manifested Himself in human flesh, bringing immortality to light.  

It’s called the new covenant to declare that the first covenant is old and ready to pass away on account of the promise that was foreshadowed there having manifested in the body of Jesus Christ. 

Heb 10:1  says For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

The law was a shadow of the promise to come.  It prophesied of the work of the Father.  Well we no longer look to the shadows in the old covenant to try and see the promise of the Father.  We see the substance of the Father’s promise brought to light in Jesus.  We dont look to the day of Pentecost as if the promise is not come.  We see Jesus, and we see the Father has poured Himself out on all flesh.  We see Jesus, and we see we have inherited the Father.  We don’t busy ourselves trying to know God through the shadows because we have the substance.  We’re not up in the temple as if that’s the place God calls home.  We see the Father has made our bodies His home.  

Heb 8:6  speaking of the substance; speaking of Jesus, says …. But now has he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.

Its better in as much as the substance is better than the shadow.  The new covenant is better in the sense that having received the Holy Spirit is more excellent than observing a day that points to receiving the Holy Spirit.  Its better in the sense that its better to see my wife in the flesh and hold her close to me, than to look at a picture of her in my phone.  

The blood of bulls and goats could never cleanse us from death.  The blood of bulls and goats could never deliver our conscience from the death thats in the world.  The blood of bulls and goats could never put our flesh to rest.  It didnt matter how many sacrifices were made.  They could only point to the bringing in of something better.  But this man Jesus, called a highpriest forever after the order of Melchizedek, having shed  his blood once for all time, sat down at the right hand of the Father.  He has perfected us from death once for all time by offering his body on the altar of our sin, that is the cross.  His blood has cleansed our conscience from the body of death; the body of sin.

Heb 8:7  For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
Heb 8:8  For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
Heb 8:9  Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.

God found fault with the old covenant.  He didnt think the old covenant was against His promise.  He found fault with it because it could never bring the promise to light.  The old covenant could never remove sin from the flesh.  It could never cleanse our conscience from death.  God saw it could never cause our hearts to go to rest in His love for us.  He saw the only way we could see He is the Father we need is if He can overcome death in the flesh, and pour out the Spirit of Truth, and that Spirit can dwell in our hearts, and persuade us that He Himself, has given His body up to be broken for us.  

Prayer