Jeremiah 23:1-8, The Promised Covenant (2)

Here are more instructive promises of the New Covenant.

¹⁹ Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, ²⁰ that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God. (Ezek. 11:19-20)

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. (Ezek. 36:26-27)

We see here the promise of the Spirit, the new birth, the ability to do God’s will (which they could not do under the old covenant), and the blessed relationship.  We should acknowledge that our righteousness in Christ, the truth that He is righteous and by Him the righteous requirement of the law was fulfilled in us (Rom. 8:4), is built on the truth of the NC.  Remember this as you read 2 Corinthians.  In Ch. 3-4 Paul speaks of the glory of the NC ministry, and then concludes in 5:21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  Our ability to live a righteous life is dependent on the relationship we have with the Lord.  The OT promised this righteousness as well.  Today’s reading from Jeremiah tells us the LORD is our righteousness (v6), a reality that comes through the “Branch of righteousness” (Messiah, v5).

And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,’ says the Lord God.” (Ezek. 39:29)

This verse concludes the prophecies of Israel except for the description of the kingdom temple and land in Ezek. 40-48.  After all the judgment, and then the restoration, God makes this promise.  Remember: the New Covenant is eternal.  The Old Covenant began at Sinai and ended at the cross of Jesus.  It is finished (Jn. 19:30).  This is one of many things encompassed by those words.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Rom. 10:4).

“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. (Zech. 12:10)

The NC makes possible genuine and deep repentance and faith.  Genuine repentance is not just sorrow for sin.  It is sorrow for the cross.  Genuine faith has as its object the One on the cross.

Isaiah 44:1-5, The Promised Covenant (1)

What, in terms of the New Covenant, was promised in the OT?

I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it,” says the Lord.’ ” (Ezek. 37:14)

This prophecy promises God’s Spirit indwelling.  As Jesus said in John 6:63, It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.  Also, note that the NC with it’s deeply spiritual nature, does not deny God’s promised physical blessings to Israel.  Remember that the first promise of the NC in Deut. 30:6 was in the context of Israel returning to the land.  Their inability to keep the first covenant (the Law) lead to their removal from the land; but the promised return happens with the accompanying NC.  The result will be a saved nation residing in the land.

Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forever. (Isa. 37:26)

The NC (New Covenant) is often called a “covenant of peace.”  It brings peace into Israel’s relationship with God.  Thus Jesus came preaching peace to those who were near (Israel) and those who were far off (Gentiles), For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father (Eph. 2:17-18).

For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, And floods on the dry ground;
I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, And My blessing on your offspring;
⁴ They will spring up among the grass Like willows by the watercourses.’
⁵ One will say, ‘I am the Lord’s’; Another will call himself by the name of Jacob;
Another will write with his hand, ‘The Lord’s,’
And name himself by the name of Israel. (Isa. 44:3-5)

The “outpouring of the Holy Spirit” is the subject here.  And look at the blessed relationship of Israel with the LORD.  I am “The Lord’s.”  So let’s be clear here.  This promise is made to Israel, the “chosen people.”  But it is the NC, which we have already noted was for those who were near and those far off.  For me, a Gentile, the NC brings the same blessing as to Jewish believers.  I don’t get a lot in Israel.  That comes to Israel via God’s promise to Abraham.  But I get the same Holy Spirit and am born again as anyone who has put their faith in Christ.  And now, Isa. 59:12:

“As for Me,” says the Lord, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the Lord, “from this time and forevermore.”

You only understand this if you read v20.  God is talking to “the Redeemer” who comes to Zion, the Messiah.  The covenant is with Christ and with all who believe in Him, His descendants (Ps. 22:30: His posterity; Isa. 53:10, His seed).

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!

Acts 13:27-29, Ex. 11:4-7, Prophecy Fulfilled

We have been paying attention to the OT and the things written about the crucifixion of Christ.  Jesus mentioned this to the disciples when they were eating the Passover meal.  Later, in Gethsemane, He said this: I was daily with you in the temple teaching, and you did not seize Me.  But the Scriptures must be fulfilled (Mk. 14:49).  Even after His resurrection Jesus emphasized this connection with the OT.  To the Emmaus Road disciples He said, ‘Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Lk. 24:26-27).  Then He said the same with the Twelve: These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me (24:44).

Let me remind you, as well, that we are not finished with this approach.  There is more to come that has its anchor in the OT.  It was not until Jesus had fully suffered the cross and the separation from His Father that it was said, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, ‘I thirst!’ (Jn. 19:28).  And even then, John tells us that the piercing of Jesus’ side was a fulfillment of Scripture (Jn. 19:36-37). 

We also need to remember that Jesus’ crucifixion contains that amazing and mysterious mix of the Sovereignty of God and the responsibility of Man.  In our previous post we noted that the Passover was “the LORD’s Passover.”  It was God’s planned event, as was the fulfillment in the Passover.  As Isaiah said, it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief (53:10). Yet, note how the Apostle Paul described this in Acts 13:27-29.  First, he said, For those who dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they did not know Him, nor even the voices of the Prophets which are read every Sabbath, have fulfilled them in condemning Him.  And though they found no cause for death in Him, they asked Pilate that He should be put to death.  Those who fulfilled the prophesied did what they did because of their own sinfulness, their own ignorance of those very Scriptures.  Paul concluded, When they had fulfilled all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb.  Everything was done according to the will of God, and out of the sinfulness of men. 

There is one other matter I want to say concerning Jesus’ death at Passover.  In Ex. 11:4-7 God gave Moses the initial idea of “Passover,” and that through this event He would make a distinction between Egypt and Israel.  How could God be merciful to Israel given that they were also sinful people?  The answer is found in the blood of the Passover Lamb.  As the LORD said, When I see the blood I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt (Ex. 12:13).  And so it is with Christ, our Paschal Lamb.  Praise the LORD!

Psalm 49:7-15, Christ our Passover Lamb

We are thinking about connections between Passover in Ex. 12 and our Lord’s ministry at the cross.  We can see that Passover speaks of “atonement,” providing a covering for sin.  Passover also speaks of “redemption.”  In the OT there are two pictures of redemption.  First, there is the one illustrated in the book of Ruth (e.g. Ruth 2:20; 4:14), where the Redeemer is a “kinsman redeemer.”  Boaz was a close relative of Naomi and Ruth.  As we have noted, the Passover lamb in Ex. 12 was part of the family for a period of time, and then shed its blood so as to “buy” freedom from death for Israel.  Job knew of this Redeemer: For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth (Job 19:25).  Jesus was our “blood brother” who was our Kinsman-Redeemer (Heb. 2:17-18).  We should join the Psalmist in 107:1-2: Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy. 

The other term is seen in the provision made for firstborn sons.  In Ex. 13:13-15 (still in the context of Passover) God proclaimed that all the firstborn in Israel belonged to Him.  Thus, a firstborn of the sheep or the herd was to be put to death.  But in the case of a firstborn son, they could be redeemed, bought with the blood of a lamb.  The Psalmist in 49:7-15 spoke of this wonderful spiritual truth.  No person can pay the ransom for another person because it is too costly.  Each is accountable for their own sin.  Yet the Psalmist is confident that God will “redeem my soul from the power of the grave.”  Christ is that Redeemer.  Study this in Col. 1 where we see that Christ, the Firstborn of all creation and Firstborn from the dead (1:15-18) is the One who has shed His blood to reconcile us to God (1:19-23).

Continuing in Ex. 12, we have seen that the covering and redemption is bound up in the blood of the lamb, as is the case with Christ.  Lev. 17:11 says, For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.  Do you remember how the God said that “the blood of (Abel) cries out to Me from the ground” (Gen. 4:10).  Every picture of atonement and redemption we have seen requires the taking of a life, meaning, the shedding of blood.  What Jesus accomplished on the cross was through His blood (e.g. Rom. 3:25; Col. 1:20).  At the Passover meal Jesus declared, This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many (Mk. 14:24).

The lamb was to be roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs, a picture of suffering.  So Christ suffered as He became our Passover (Ps. 22:12-18; Isaiah 53:3-7).  And lastly, the Passover was “the LORD’s” Passover (12:11).  So, Christ was smitten by God and afflicted (Isa. 53:4).  God brought (Him) to the dust of death (Ps. 22:15).  He was delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:22-24).

Psalm 91

This anonymous Psalm, ascribed by some to Moses who wrote the previous Hymn, has attracted a great following.  It promises protection and deliverance to those who walk deeply with God.  But it does not give the saint a free pass with respect to the difficulties of life.  It promises deliverance (v3), including from Satan, the fowler who seeks to ensnare.  It promises God’s truth to be a covering for the pilgrim (v4).  He will not need to be afraid (v5-6).  He will not experience the evil that comes upon the wicked (v7-8).  He will be protected and encouraged in the face of life’s difficulties (v10-13).  But it also says that God will be with him in trouble (v15). 

Jesus gave the sense and application of this Psalm when Satan himself quoted 91:11-12 in one of the temptations (Matt. 4:5-7).  He refused to test God by requiring God, so to speak, to deliver Him from falling.  In another passage Jesus noted those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul (Matt. 10:28).  Every saint in Scripture faced tribulation, beginning with our Lord and each of His Apostles.  This Psalm does not indicate we will have no trouble; it promises rather perfect protection for the soul regardless of the trouble.

To put ourselves intentionally in danger would actually deny the very condition for this Psalm that is seen at the start (91:1-2) and again in the middle (91:9).  That is where we need to spend time in meditation.  God, by His truth, will be the refuge for the one who dwells in the secret place of the most High.

·         To dwell is to sit down, to remain, or to stay somewhere.  It does not speak of a short visit or merely passing by.  We take the name of the place where we dwell.  Those who dwell in Israel are Israelites.  Those who dwell in God’s holy habitation are holy ones or saints (Deut. 26:15).  Under the New Covenant it is to abide in Christ (John 15).  And yet at the same time it is for Christ to dwell in our hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17).  It is to answer the knock on the hearts door and to welcome the Savior for deep fellowship (Rev. 3:20).

·         The secret place is the place where nothing Satanic or evil or destructive to the soul can ever enter.  It is God’s tabernacle (Psalm 27:5).  Christ was in that place in Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal.  He bids us enter into the same place to find help (Heb. 4:16).   How can this be when we are on this earth, so far from our eternal home?  It is because …

·         Our dwelling place is God Himself (91:9; 90:1).  As 91:2 says: I will say of the Lord … my refuge and my fortress!  This is not magical nor mystical.  It is frequent and deep fellowship with God through prayer and His word.  To pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17) is to be at home in the secret place.  It is nothing between my soul and the Savior; the ongoing experience of His forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:9).  It is the presentation of our bodies as living sacrifices, our only reasonable worship (Rom. 12:1).

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High

Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Mark 14:12; Ex. 11:4-7; 12:1-7,13, What was Written about When Jesus Would be Crucified?

Jesus was crucified at Passover.  Not the Day of Atonement.  Not during the Feast of Tabernacles.  But Passover.  The rest of the NT calls attention to this fact.  John the Baptist referred to Jesus as the Lamb of God (John 1:29), a title of Christ that is found in the Passover.  Paul said, Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us (1 Cor. 5:7).  Peter’s words in 1 Pt. 1:17-19 are profound:

¹⁷ And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; ¹⁸ knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, ¹⁹ but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

There are many things about the first Passover that connect with Jesus’ crucifixion.  Moses told the people of Israel what God had said to him: around midnight the LORD was going to kill the firstborn of all in the land of Egypt, but He would not kill the firstborn of the Israelites.  In this way, everyone would know that the LORD made a distinction between Egypt and Israel.  Moses said these words for Pharoah to hear (11:8), and yet he spoke in the hearing of the people of Israel (11:2). 

Exodus 12 contains the instructions for the first Passover, the one that set the stage for all the others, and the one that prophesies Christ.  For example, in 12:3 we see that, as Jesus often said, “whosoever will may come.”  The offer was to all the people of Israel.  Passover involved a male lamb, without blemish (12:5), fulfilled in Jesus.  In 12:6 we see that the lamb was chosen and spent 4 days with the family, becoming dear to them.  In the same way, Christ came to His own, and lived among them, and ministered among them, and then was put to death. 

The Israelites were to take blood from the sacrificial lamb and put it on the doorposts and over the top of the door.  Thus, the lamb provided “atonement.”  The word for “atonement” comes from Gen. 6:14 when Noah was told by the LORD to cover the ark with pitch so that it would not leak.  In the case of Passover, the blood provided a covering over the household so that, when the LORD went throughout Egypt He would “pass over” the homes of the Israelites that were covered with blood.  The Lord Jesus provides an eternal covering for us, as we see in Rom. 3:24-25:

being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed.

There is more to say about this connection, which we will in the next post.