“This cup is God’s new covenant sealed with my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:20, GNB)
I am convinced that perhaps the biggest fallacy that exists in the Body of Christ has to do with the covenant between us and God. It is thus important that we pause a little while at what precisely the new covenant entails.
The fact that there is talk of two covenants, or rather testaments (the same word as in the original language), has resulted in the two covenants being mixed up through tradition. It is an old strategy of Satan to fuse things with each other and, in so doing, create detours. “One of the great means by which Satan has succeeded in corrupting the Gospel, has been the blending and the confusing of … the old and new covenants,” said James Haldane quite aptly.
There are various Old Testament covenants that can be broadly grouped together as being manifestations of the Old Covenant (Rom 9:4; Gal 4:24; Eph 2:12). On the other hand is the New Covenant, which Heb 7:22 calls a “better covenant”.
We do need to reiterate: through the sin of Adam the entire humanity ended up in a fallen state. Rom 5:12 states it as follows: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned …” All people “like Adam have transgressed the covenant” (Hos 6:7, ASV). For this reason Paul says in 1 Cor 15:22 that “in Adam all die”. What exactly does this mean, and what must happen for this “covenant with death” (Is 28:15) to be nullified?
Heb 9:15 states that Christ is “the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”
- Sela: Find clear examples of covenants in the three scriptures below and ponder these.
- Read: Judg 7; Ps 97; Acts 7
- Memorise: Acts 7:49
