In the early days of Mid-Acts dispensationalism, as we began to see the distinction between Israel and "the church which is His Body" (Ephesians 1:22,23), many wondered about our relationship to the New Covenant, since it was obviously made with the people of Israel:
"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).
It was argued by some that since the New Covenant was made with Israel, it could have no effect on the Body of Christ, the church of this dispensation. Indeed, extreme dispensationalists today (who start the Body in Acts 28) still believe that the New Covenant has no connection to the Body of Christ.
But in II Corinthians 3:6, our apostle Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles (Romans 15:16) who speaks to us Gentiles (Romans 11:13), says that God (v.5) "hath made us able ministers of the new testament." Since there can be no denying that Paul says we have a relationship with the New Covenant, it is up to us to learn what that relationship is.
An easy way to begin to understand our relationship to the New Covenant is to first study our relationship to the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant, like the New Covenant, was made with the house of Israel. Yet in Romans 3:19, Paul says,
"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God."
Here we see that whatever the Law (the Old Covenant) said, it said to those who were under the Law. That would have to be the Jews, since the Gentiles were never under the Law. But notice that Paul goes on to say that while the Law spoke to those who were under the Law, it did so so that "every mouth" might be stopped, and "all the world become guilty before God." And so we see that while the Old Covenant was made with Israel, it condemned all the world.
It is not difficult to understand how the covenant that was made with Israel condemned all the world. God made the Old Covenant with Israel, then showered blessings upon them, working miracles for them, and showing Himself to be their God in every way. If such a blessed people as Israel could not keep the Law, it pretty much meant that no one could keep the Law. This is how the Law that was made with Israel condemned the whole world in the process of condemning Israel.
But if the Old Covenant was made with Israel, yet condemned the entire world, then we can extrapolate from that and say that if the New Covenant was made with Israel, it too can have an effect on people outside of the people of Israel.
The reason for this is not difficult to understand. The New Covenant is centered in the cross (Hebrews 9:16-22). The Lord brought this out when He instituted the Lord's Supper (Matthew 26:28). This is because the basis of all the good that God could do for Israel is all centered in the Cross.
But our apostle Paul also commands us to observe the Lord's Supper (I Corinthians 11:23ff). This is because the basis of all the good that God could do for us is also centered in the Cross.
As Pastor Stam used to say, the Cross is the great meeting place of both programs. Extreme dispensationalists teach that we today have nothing in common with Israel, but this is not true. We have the same God, the same Bible, and the same eternal life. We share a common spiritual father in Abraham, whom Paul says is "the father of us all" (Romans 4:16). "The adoption" is also something that Paul said originally pertained to Israel (Romans 9:4), but this too was something that was expanded to include us (Romans 8:15; Ephesians 1:5) through the ministry of the Apostle Paul.
There is something else about the New Covenant that makes it easy to see our connection with it. The New Covenant, unlike the Old Covenant, is a covenant of grace. I like to illustrate the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant by comparing some verses in Ezekiel. In Ezekiel 18, we see a good example of the Old Covenant when God said to Israel,
"Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" (Ezekiel 18:31).
As you can see, under the Law, God is commanding Israel to do what they could not do, give themselves a new heart and a new spirit. Now compare this to what we read about how things will be under the New Covenant, described in the latter part of Ezekiel 36:
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."
Do you see here that under the New Covenant, God promises to do for Israel that which they could not do for themselves. Well, we have a word for this kind of thing; we call it grace! Isn't that what God does for us when He saves us, doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves? Giving us a new birth, making us a "new creature" in Christ, etc.
It should be remembered that while we live in "the dispensation of the grace of God" given to Paul (Ephesians 3:1-3), that we don't have a corner on the market when it comes to grace in the Bible. Even Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Genesis 6:8). Outside of the grace of God, no man could ever be saved. And so we should not be surprised to read that someday under the terms of the New Covenant, God predicts that He will receive Israel "graciously" (Hosea 14:2). In fact, Hosea 14:1,2 gives a sort of "sinner's prayer" for the people of Israel when it says,
"O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity.
"Take with you words, and turn to the Lord, say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously; so will we render the calves of our lips."
Notice that Hosea tells Israel to turn to the Lord, and actually tells them what words to say to Him when they return to Him. And the key word that he tells them to use is the word grace.
Now let's see how the details of the New Covenant agree with the concept of grace. In Jeremiah's prediction of the New Covenant, he quotes God over and over as saying: "I will." Over and over, God talks about what He will do for Israel:
"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.
"...I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:33,34).
Did you notice that God here is making unconditional promises? This is quite different than the Old Covenant of the Law. The Old Covenant of the Law was a system of conditional blessing. The words "if" and "then" are key under the Old Covenant. God said to Israel, in effect, "If you are good, then I will bless you. But if you are bad, then I will curse you." Study carefully Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28 and see if this isn't so.
But this is why in Jeremiah 31:32, God predicts that when He makes the New Covenant with Israel, He will make it...
"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..."
God is saying that when He makes the New Covenant with Israel, it won't be like the Old Covenant of the Law. That is, it won't be an "if-then" system of conditional blessing. That's why, as we have seen, as the passage in Jeremiah continues, it is filled with statements from God saying "I will," with no hint of God saying that He will do these things only if Israel does something to merit these blessings. And unmerited favor is grace.
This is why we can add the New Covenant and the Lord's Supper to that list of things that we have in common with Israel, for the New Covenant is a covenant of grace.
Now let's consider the details of the New Covenant, as listed in Jeremiah 31. As Pastor Stam has aptly pointed out, you'll notice that there is no mention of the Promised Land or anything that specifically pertains to Israel. Rather Jeremiah lists things that we have in common with Israel:
"...I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts" (Jeremiah 31:33).
Isn't this something that we share in common with Israel? It is significant that just before Paul says that we are able ministers of the New Covenant in II Corinthians 3:6, Verse 3 says:
"Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart"
Obviously, this is something that the New Covenant provides for Israel by grace, but it is also obviously something that the New Covenant provides for us by grace!
Next, Jeremiah says:
"...and will be their God, and they shall be My people" (Jeremiah 31:33).
Well, isn't He our God (Titus 2:13), and are we not His people (Titus 2:14)?
Next Jeremiah says:
"...they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them..." (Jeremiah 31:34).
Well, don't we know the Lord, from the least of us to the greatest of us? Paul says that we don't know Him after the flesh (IICor.5:16), but we know Him, unlike the unbelieving Gentiles around us "which know not God" (IThes.4:5; Tit.1:16).
Next, Jeremiah says,
"...I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jeremiah 31:34).
Well, don't we have "forgiveness of sins" (Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14)? Does He remember our sins against us?
In light of all this, I feel we can safely conclude that while there are many differences between ourselves and the people of Israel, there are also many connections, and the New Covenant would be one of those connections.
Please be sure to let me know if you have any questions about any of this, [edit name], and I'll be happy to discuss it further with you.
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Ricky Kurth
