Mk 14:22-26; Jer. 31:31-34, The New Covenant as Written

It is Passover and Jesus and His disciples kept the feast.  We have seen that the Passover speaks of Christ in many ways.  Now we see that at the meal Jesus used the occasion to show us how the establishment of the New Covenant was tied to His crucifixion.  This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many (Mk. 14:24).  Blood had been shed in establishing the Old Covenant (Ex. 24:8).  Now blood would establish the New Covenant.  The New Covenant is, of course, huge!  It involves the new birth, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and was founded on the blood of Christ that brought about the forgiveness of sin.  For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more (Jer. 31:34).  The promise of this New Covenant is found frequently in the OT.

Let me remind you of the first promise, in Deuteronomy.  The LORD told Moses that while Israel had seen all that God had done, yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day (29:4).  But then the LORD told Moses that a day would come, after much history and sin and suffering, that He would bring them back to the land and would 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 (30:6).  This “circumcision of the heart” speaks of the New Covenant.  Col. 2:11-14 tells us that this spiritual circumcision came through the His cross.

The clearest statement of the New Covenant comes in Jeremiah 31:31-34, and for that reason the writer to the Hebrews quotes the entire passage in Heb. 8:7-13.  As the Old Covenant was made with Israel, so the New Covenant is made with the house of Israel.  The new is said to replace the old which they could not keep.  God promises to put His law in their minds and hearts.  He also promised that they will have a relationship with Him, something that God had promised often in the OT: I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  It will be such a deep relationship that no one will need to teach them to “Know the LORD” because they will already know Him.  All this is possible because the sin that separates men from God will be forgiven.  This tells us why Israel in Deuteronomy did not and could not have a heart and eyes and ears to perceive. 

How would the LORD put His law in their minds and hearts?  And how would this relationship be realized?  The answer is found in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  Thus we find that in many of the OT prophecies of the New Covenant there is a recognition of this.  These promises are such a blessing I want to share several with you in the next post.  At this point, we should give God the glory that now, in Christ, He has given the ability to know Him deeply, and by the ministry of the Holy Spirit we have hearts and eyes and ears to perceive His truth.  As Jesus told Nicodemus, we can enter and see the kingdom of God!