When you read a lot of blogs and especially if you follow threads of comments on blogs, you have to resist getting caught up in a lot of arguments. And in certain types of blogs you will find a lot of people with an axe to grind against Christianity. Really they have a problem with the particular experiences they have had in churches and Christian groups.

Just this week, I found that a friend had quoted me at length on their blog and opened it up for comments. I don’t take comments on my blog anymore, and for good reason. But I thought it would be interesting to see what comments this quote from my blog would draw.

The first woman who quoted wrote a thoughtful piece. She supported both Christianity and Israel and had some good questions about how the two relate. At the end she asked about certain scriptures which make it seem as thought Torah is obsolete.

Then came the really disturbing comment, by a man who wanted to answer her question. He advised her to question everything she had ever been taught and to read the New Testament from scratch with an eye for Jewish issues.

So far so good.

But then he said, that by the time you get to the end of the NT you will realize something.

The only person who doesn’t fit in with the theology of the rest of the NT is . . . Paul.

That is, the NT reads just fine on Jewish issues if you are just willing to take Paul out of it.

I’ve seen before that some people feel the best thing is to get rid of Paul. I see people who feel they owe an allegiance to the Israel/Jewish/Torah side of the Bible and they struggle with how to accurately interpret the grace/universal/in Christ side of the Bible.

Many people fail to see that the two are in perfect harmony. There has been so much bad teaching on all sides and in all denominations over the centuries, it’s no wonder people can get confused.

But I have believed something since the early days when I started following Yeshua and I have found it to be true ever since. When read properly, the Bible will be internally consistent.

It really shouldn’t be hard to believe that. God’s chain of revelation went, essentially, from Abraham to Moses. There should be no disagreement between Abraham and Moses.

Then from Moses God passed the chain of revelation on the Sages and Prophets. They based their work on Moses. So we should be surprised if we were to find contradictions and problems.

Then Yeshua came as a man of the Bible. He quoted it to Satan, to enemies, and to disciples.

He sought the deeper meaning of it. He taught the true message of Moses and the prophets and psalms.

And so the disciples who taught in his name carried on the tradition. They did not intend to overturn Moses, the prophets, and Yeshua. They intended to uphold these and apply them to their readers in their new situation.

So why should we worry at all that the Bible is internally inconsistent? It ought to be a collection that agrees internally, building its ideas in a progression from beginning to end. And it is.

You don’t have to abandon the centrality of Israel to believe in grace or be skeptical about the Paul’s understanding of grace to believe in Israel and Torah.

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I was thinking about all of these things when I came to my topic for today...the New Covenant.

Handled improperly the New Covenant can be a tool for misunderstanding, a bludgeon used against Judaism and against Torah.

But the New Covenant is something beautiful. Rather than bringing all the previous promises of God to an end, which is sadly what many think, the New Covenant sums them all up and adds to them. The New Covenant is the highest form of all the promises of God.

Hebrews 8:6:

But Yeshua has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree He is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been legally enacted on better promises.

What does this verse mean? Does the work of Yeshua bring all that came before to an end? Did God start all over with Yeshua? Were all the promises to Abraham, Moses, and Israel null and void?

Of course not, though many read verses like Hebrews 8:6 that way. The truth is, and I mean this, most people don’t even know what the New Covenant is.

For starters, the New Covenant is not another way of referring to the New Testament. They are different things. The New Testament is a collection of writings, the writings of the apostles. But the New Covenant is something much bigger.

WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT THE NEW COVENANT?

To really explain to you what is so great about the New Covenant, I need to start by explaining it from the human point of view.

Consider what Abraham learned about God. One day, he believed like everyone else in the unpredictable, immature deities of Mesopotamia. Then he heard a voice and he discovered a God who promised him a blessing, a people, and a land.

Abraham discovered he was part of something bigger. The universe is not random, cruel, and meaningless. There is a God who rules over history and peoples and nations. Abraham called him the Judge of all the Earth.

With Abraham, God instituted a relationship with a man that would:

-Affect his future

-Create and multiply a people

-Establish a land and a nation

-And save the whole world!

How’s that for a promise? And so it passed on to Isaac and Jacob and through them to their descendants. Now, on a day to day basis, it might have been hard to be excited about the Abrahamic covenant.

Fields still had to be worked. Wars and violence still happened. Sin was right there ruining so many things. Life was hard. And the Abrahamic promise did not really make it easier.

Rather, it gave something to look forward to. It gave meaning to life. It gave the people knowledge of a God worth worshipping.

And so it went until Abraham’s family was in slavery. With each generation the stories of Abraham’s God grew fainter and fainter.

Then, along came Moses, claiming that he had heard again from the God of Abraham. And there were miracles. And there was redemption. And there was freedom.

And then came Sinai. Now God did more than he had done with Abraham. He gave the people a teaching, the Torah. And he increased the relationship between God and men.

Now the nation from Abraham would have a much deeper relationship. There were commandments to learn, memorize, and teach to children. And there were WARNINGS and PROMISES.

God WARNED that if the people did not follow the Torah, their nation would be overrun and destitute. God PROMISED that if they did observe it, they would have plenty and blessing.

A man or woman’s purpose for living increased. God became more than a promise. He became also a way of life.

But still, on a day to day basis, things were hard. And with each generation life got more disheartening.

The people were not following the Torah. If you believed with all your heart in Torah, you had to be grieved. If you were not sure about Torah, you had to wonder why bother to follow it. Most people aren’t following it. What good will it do if I follow it?

It could be depressing.

BUT ALL ALONG THERE WERE HINTS OF SOMETHING BETTER.

Moses spoke of a great future when all Israel would have circumcised hearts. Ezekiel spoke of new hearts and a new spirit placed inside. Isaiah spoke of a Redeemer who would set the prisoners free. Jeremiah put it into the clearest context of all: a NEW COVENANT.

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Now, this is where it gets confusing. You see, in a minute, I am going to affirm that we are living in the days of the New Covenant. But right away you are going to see that not all of the New Covenant promises have come true.

THIS IS A PRIMARY SOURCE OF CONFUSION ABOUT THIS ISSUE.

The New Covenant is now and not yet, here but not fully, inaugurated but not yet consummated.

To see what I mean, let’s read the New Covenant promise:

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Look, the days are coming”—|this is| the LORD’S declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.  32 |This one will| not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant they broke even though I had married them”—the LORD’S declaration.  33 “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the LORD’S declaration. “I will place My law within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people.  34 No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying: Know the LORD,a for they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them”—the LORD’S declaration. “For I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sin.”

Notice the promises of the New Covenant:

1. 1.It is with Israel and Judah.
   

2. 2.It will be different from the Sinai Covenant.
   

3. 3.Yet the Torah from the Sinai Covenant will be included in this New Covenant--written on hearts.
   

4. 4.Israel and Judah will be my people.
   

5. 5.No one will have to teach people to believe in God anymore.
   

6. 6.God will forgive sins.
   

There are two things in the New Covenant that have not yet happened:
1. We still have to teach people to believe in God.

7. 7.The Torah, God’s law, is not yet written on the hearts of God’s people. When it is written there, we will stop sinning.
   

But it is with the last promise, that sins will be forgiven, that we should now turn to.

This is no light promise for God to make. To forgive sins is no small thing. How will God do that?

Will he declare a blanket amnesty, just forgive all sins for all people? Or will he just declare amnesty for those who believe in him?

If so, what will be the basis of forgiving sin? Can he just overlook it? If he just overlooks sin, what will sinners say? Will they say, “God, I guess sin was never any big deal after all”?

We should not be surprised that the next time we hear about the New Covenant, it is from the lips of Yeshua.

It happened on the last night of our Messiah’s life on this earth. Just hours before he was arrested and less than twenty-four hours before he was killed, our Messiah said:

This cup is the New Covenant, ratified by my blood, which is being poured out for you.

Shortly after that, his blood was poured out on a Roman cross. And after he rose, Yeshua’s followers understood what it had all been about. Yeshua died as a sacrifice to bring forgiveness for sins.

That’s the part of the New Covenant that is already here. It is the part where your sins and mine are forgiven.

Nothing more and nothing less. But there is a lot more to come.

So what has changed?

Our relationship to God has changed. There is no barrier between us. If the world is wicked, still we know where we stand with God. And our life has even more purpose than before.

But the even better part is that we know that Yeshua is coming back. We know that he will bring the rest of the promise.

And so we have more to look forward to than ever before. Peter, who was very close to Yeshua, says it beautifully:

1 Peter 1:13

...fix your hopes fully on the gift you will receive when Yeshua the Messiah is revealed.

WHY IS THE NEW COVENANT SO GREAT?

We have something Abraham only dreamed about. We have forgiveness and an unbreakable relationship with God. We have seen God act in history through Yeshua and we know that the rest of the promise is coming.

And that is the key point: We know about the World to Come.

We know a day is coming when all people will know God, as the New Covenant foretells. And we know some details. We know God will dwell with us.

Abraham didn’t know that. Moses didn’t know that.

We know a little about what sort of world the World to Come will be. We know about our vine and fig tree. We know about deserts blossoming like a rose. We know about lions and lambs. We know about the end of pain and tears. We know that evil will be gone for good.

We know everything good in this world will be better in the World to Come. We know everything unworthy in this world will not exist then.

So, we can agree with Hebrews 8:6:

But Yeshua has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree He is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been legally enacted on better promises.

These words were uttered to some Messianic Jews who were thinking of denying Yeshua. They thought, “Who needs Yeshua if we just have Judaism?”

The writer of Hebrews understood that Judaism is good and Yeshua is good. But Judaism without Yeshua is giving up the New Covenant. It is giving up forgiveness of sins. It is giving up the certain hope that Yeshua brought through his death and even more through his resurrection.

THE NEW COVENANT IS GREAT BECAUSE OF THE PROMISES.

Peter says this also:

2 Peter 1:4

he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of passion.

Let’s hold fast to God’s great promises.

Let’s see the Old contained in the New -- and God’s way as one way, not two.

Let’s BELIEVE and escape the corruption of this world.