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New Covenant Implementation

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Christians have a wide range of beliefs.  We shouldn’t be surprised that some think the New Covenant will not be available to mankind until the second coming of Jesus Christ.  

"But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jer 31:33-34)

Indeed, from this verse alone it seems apparent that the ‘New Covenant’ is not reality yet.  Certainly this does not accurately describe the state of the world today.

However, there are other scriptures that seem to indicate it is here now.  Is there a conflict or contradiction in God’s word to us?  Certainly there is a time gap, but time to God is not like time to us.  He really doesn’t seem to care much about it, except that he is always punctual,.. to a fault! J

So He will make a New Covenant.  Everyone will know Him. They will both come to pass generally in the order indicated.  English speakers naturally link them together in time and effect.  In other words, we read it like one immediately causes the other.  One will cause the other, but the timing is not a sure thing, because our Creator’s perspective on time and ours is quite different and He’s doing the talking here.

Of course there is Matthew 26:28, which seems to indicate that Jesus was making the New Covenant available to the disciples.  The wording is somewhat odd, but it seems clear enough that He is linking His blood with a new covenant.  He was killed the next afternoon.  The sacrifice made at the occasion of a blood covenant was an integral part of the confirmation of a covenant.  That, and the verbal agreeing of the parties involved, solidified the agreement.  It would seem by eating and drinking, the disciples were agreeing to their half of the covenant. Whether they fully understood it at the time is not perfectly clear.  However, by the time the synoptic Gospels were written, it seems likely they did.  They all recorded the link between His blood and a new covenant.

Of course Christians typically participate in a memorial like this to this day. "In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes."(1Cor 11:25-26).  This is important, because we are forgiven by His sacrifice in death.  Here too, this memorial is linked with a New Covenant.

"And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first [former] covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." (Heb 9:15)

He paid for our transgressions through His death.  Under the auspices of the New Covenant, in combination with His death, redemption is available.  So, if the New Covenant is yet to come, we have not yet been forgiven.  Fortunately though, we have a mediator. "For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus," (1Tim 2:5).  If He is the one mediator and He is the mediator of the New Covenant, doesn’t it follow that He is mediating based on the terms of the New Covenant?

Hebrews 8:6 talks of a ‘a better covenant, which was established on better promises’.  This covenant was already in place.  How could it be different from the New Covenant mentioned in Hebrews 8:8.  Hebrews is linking the two.

Paul also identifies with the New Covenant.  "who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." (II Cor 3:6)

Paul then indicates that he walks according to the spirit "that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (Rom 8:4)

The New Covenant is a covenant that involves the mentality.  Believers conduct themselves (walk) in a fundamentally different way.  One does not just keep it according to the letter, but in the full spirit and full intent of the terms.  Paul claims to be conducting himself in that way.  Yes, God wanted everyone to keep it this way from the beginning, but very few did.

"And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not" (Deu 8:2).

" And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live" (Deu 30:6).

In calling himself a ‘minister’ of the New Covenant, Paul is calling himself a servant or errand boy for the New Covenant.  Again, he places this in the here and now.  There is no indication that it is a ‘coming’ new covenant, but a here and now New Covenant.

Hebrews is concerned that some have not appreciated their responsibility in the New Covenant.  Heb 10:28 "Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?"

Believers are sanctified by the death of Messiah (Heb 10:10).  The only covenant that is associated with is the New Covenant (I Cor 11:25, Mat 26:28).  One can’t be sanctified by a covenant that does not exist.

Peter in Acts 2:16-19 claimed that the Apostles were involved in the fulfillment of Joel 2:8

"And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams." (Acts 2:17)

This event seems similar to:

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them." (Eze 36:26-27 see also 37:24)

" No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jer 31:34)

It is difficult to separate these apparently future events, yet Peter placed Joel’s fulfillment about 2000 years ago.  We don’t need to deny Peter’s perception, but consider that he is involved in the opening chapter of a longer book.  Certainly to him, based on the events of Pentecost (Acts 2), the Spirit was moving in a bold and powerful way.

Jesus disciples (not to mention the Jews) could not separate the coming of the Messiah from the establishing of a dominant Israel (Acts 1:16).  In the same way, some have confused the establishment of the New Covenant, with the time when everyone would participate.

We have stated elsewhere that ‘They were on their own when it came to obeying the law'.  I suspect that is the problem today as well and that is why the church is stuck in the rut it is.  We are not defective by design, unable to obey, but the influences of our parents back to Adam, with Satan doing his share make it difficult for us to fathom the full intent of the mind of God.  It’s simply foreign.

God is not going to remove our free moral agency any more than He intended to remove theirs.  However, He did do something that truly converted the Apostles and a fair number of others.  At least Peter thought the people he wrote to were converted (1Pet 1:22-23).  The dirty little secret of the New Testament is that very few were truly converted.  Almost all the Epistles deal with some problem the ‘believers’ were having, from incest to confusion about what the Gospel really was.

Evidently, some did get it though.  They "escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust".  Have you ever heard anyone seriously claim they were in that category? Yet it is not difficult to find scriptures to affirm that as the condition of a true believer.  It also seems to be tied with the sacrifice of Christ and therefore the New Covenant in His blood, of which He is the mediator and Paul a minister.