Covenant is perhaps one of the most driving themes throughout Scripture. This theme is easy to see in the Old Testament, as God declares His covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Oftentimes, however, people miss the fact that covenant is also a pressing theme in the New Testament. In fact, these great covenants all find their completion in the new and better covenant of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“For all the promises of God find their yes in him [Jesus]. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.” – 2 Cor. 1:20
In the person of the Messiah Jesus Christ, the Jews were able to witness the fulfillment of all the promises for which their ancestor longed. God had not forgotten His people. In Luke 1, upon the birth of his son, Zechariah breaks out in praise for God. He declares all of the promises that God had made to His people: to show them mercy (v. 72), to remember His covenant with Abraham (v. 73), and to deliver them from the hands of their enemies (v. 74). Zechariah and his wife were old. They were unable to have children. But God promised them a child anyways. Zechariah has a seemingly reasonable response: a very doubtful “How?” Immediately, he becomes mute. He had doubted God’s promise, and now he was going to be mute until that promise was fulfilled. Either Zechariah would be a mute for the rest of his life, or he would have a child. Either God keeps His word, or Zechariah continues to suffer. But of course God does fulfill his promise. With this bit of backstory, it makes sense that when Zechariah’s son was born, and his voice was returned, the first thing that escapes his lips is praise for the God who does keep His promises. With the birth of his son, Zechariah experienced the faithfulness of God in a personal way. It is in this moment of God’s fulfilled promise to him that Zechariah recalls other promises God made: His covenant promises. If God kept His promise of providing a son for Zechariah, then He too would keep the promises He made to His people.
In the Old Testament, God established five major covenants with His people: the Noahic covenant, Abrahamic covenant, Mosaic covenant, Davidic covenant, and the New covenant. Each of these covenants was accompanied by a promise. It is in the final, new covenant that those promises are finally realized in a profound way through the person of Christ. This “new” covenant is not a mere abolition of all the old covenants, but is instead a fulfillment of them. Christ himself makes this clear in Matthew 5:17, when he tells his listeners “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” But how, exactly, is Christ the fulfillment of these other covenants?
In God’s covenant with Noah, He showed Noah just how valuable human life is by promising that He would never again pour out His wrath through a flood on earth. He saved Noah and promised safety from His wrath in the form of another global flood. But in Christ, all of God’s wrath for humanity is swallowed up in a way that the flood could not accomplish. Jesus Christ took on the Father’s wrath to save those who would believe not just from a flood, but from all judgment that comes from the throne of Heaven.
God’s covenant promise to Abraham included two primary things: land and descendants. His family would multiply. In Jesus Christ, people from every tribe, nation, and tongue are brought into the family of Abraham as God’s children. The children of Abraham would no longer be confined to his physical offspring. Instead, the blood of Christ would serve to adopt millions of people across the world into God’s family.
God’s covenant with Moses can be basically stated in one phrase: “be holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). Yahweh would be their God, and Israel would be His people. When Christ came, He obeyed God perfectly on our behalf and offered up His righteousness so that we might be holy in God’s sight. “Be holy for I am holy” is now accompanied by the phrase “You are holy for Christ is holy” (Phil. 3:9, 2 Cor. 5:21).
God promised David that his royal line would last forever. When Jesus Christ was born, he was born from the line of David. It is this great King whose reign and rule will never end. He is more than just another king in David’s line. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Even the wind and the waves obey his decrees. The God-man Jesus Christ has brought about a new and better covenant, and the gospel has put this on display.
In the person of Jesus Christ, Christians can understand the substance of what the New Covenant truly is and what it means. In the book of Acts, this is put into action as a big distinction is made between the Old Covenants and the New. God’s covenants are eternal in nature, but these never-ending covenants were always thought to be reserved for the Jews. However, God cares for all the peoples of the earth, not just the Jews. This fact is seen clearly in Acts, as the apostles follow Christ’s final command to take the gospel message to the “ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The mission of the apostles in the book of acts makes it clear: God’s covenant promises are not reserved only for the Jews. The Gentiles have been invited into God’s family. Peter states this profoundly when he visited Cornelius. “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a Jew to associate with or to visit anyone of another nation, but God has shown me that I should not call any person common or unclean” (Acts 10:28). To partake in the promises of God does not require us to be a specific race or ethnicity, for God shows no partiality. Instead, it requires only that we fear God and follow Him as we trust in Christ’s sacrifice for us on the cross (Acts 10:34).
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” – C.S. Lewis
The apostle Paul is often known as the “apostle unto the Gentiles” (Acts 9:15, 13:47, 22:21). This theme is introduced in the book of Acts, and brought to fruition in Paul’s epistles. In Galatians 3, Paul calls us back to his mission to the Gentiles. He finishes chapter 3 with this: “There is neither Greek nor Jew, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (v. 28-29). Paul continues to flesh out this theme in Romans 9. He points out that the covenants belonged to Israel (Rom. 9:4). “Israel”, however, does not refer to mere physical offspring, but rather to the “children of the promise” (v. 8). This means that those who are not Jews can take part in the new covenant, which is the fulfillment of the promises of the old covenants. Gentiles can be children of God through faith in Christ, same as the Jews. Paul even goes one step farther and says that being a physical offspring of Abraham does not guarantee that they are children of the promise. This would have shocked any Jewish readers of the day. It was bad enough that Paul was saying Gentiles are included in God’s covenant, but now he was saying that some ethnic Jews were not included. God’s family is not a matter of ancestors, says Paul, but of the heart. Those who trust in Christ and follow His words are God’s children, and those who do not trust in Him are children of the devil (1 John 3:10).
Covenants are forever. However, Jesus has brought a “new and better” covenant to His people. Hebrews 8:6 says, “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.” Next, Paul says something very interesting. “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second…In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (v. 7, 13). Paul had just finished pointing out that God does not change and He does not fail (Heb. 6:13-20), yet now He is saying that this first covenant (speaking of the Mosaic covenant) was not faultless. How could a perfect God have a fault in His covenant? The answer lies in where the blame is to be placed. The fault lies not in God, but in man. The Mosaic covenant in many ways required people to play their part in following the law. That is where its fault lies. God kept His end of the bargain. He fulfilled all of His promises. In fact, he continued to do this even when His people failed to keep their end (which was more often than not). Things had to change. God required justice for our wrongdoing, but we were unable to provide it. This new covenant, however, puts all of the “weight” on God. It is God who enacts this covenant, and God who completes it. There is now no place for man to mess it up, as God shows His mighty hand through His Son Jesus Christ. The old covenant promises are not forgotten, but in many ways the old covenant itself is obsolete, thanks to Jesus Christ – who really is true and better.