The Daily Word of Righteousness

Grace, and the New Covenant, #3

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: (Jeremiah 31:31)

If we Gentiles would understand the new covenant we must realize it is made only with Israel. We must become, through Christ, an integral part of Israel before we are eligible to partake of the new covenant.

Also, we must realize that the new covenant is a response to the wickedness of God's chosen people and its purpose is to forgive their sins and cleanse them from all unrighteousness. God was displeased with the rebellion and uncleanness of His people. God issued a new covenant designed not only or even primarily to forgive the sins of Israel but to remove their wicked ways.

When the grace of the new covenant is seen as an unconditional unforgiveness not requiring godly behavior, the purpose of which is to make Gentiles eligible to reside forever in Heaven, then what we have is a myth, not the fulfillment of the prophecy given by the Prophet Jeremiah. There is absolutely no foundation for such a viewpoint in either the Old Testament or the New Testament.

Let us look briefly at what Jeremiah stated, remembering that what God is declaring is the new covenant, the only covenant, the Christian covenant. All else is the vain imaginations of people.

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

The new covenant, the Christian covenant, is made only with the house of Israel and Judah, that is, with the royal priesthood. It is not made with the people of the world.

The new covenant supersedes the Mosaic covenant because the Jews could not or would not remain faithful to the Mosaic covenant.

The new covenant is the eternal law of God put in the mind of the worshiper and written in his heart.

God will be their God and the Israelites will be God's people, as a result of the new covenant.

Every member of God's Israel will know the Lord for himself or herself.

God will forget the sins of those who come under the new covenant.

To be continued.