We’ve all made agreements throughout our life. Some of them are legal and binding, and others are not. I can agree to do you a favor, but that is generally not legally binding unless we saw an attorney before, or I signed some legal contract with you. Then it would be binding. A covenant is a type of legal agreement, a promise, or a contract. Another legal word for a covenant is testament. In our Bibles we have the Old Testament and the New Testament, also sometimes called the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Our Scripture for today speaks of a new covenant that the Lord will make with His people.
In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, God called Abraham and his descendants to be His people, and He promised to be their God and to bless them. In the Book of Exodus this agreement was formalized where the people of Israel made a covenant with Yahweh. They agreed to obey the Law that He gave, and worship only Him. God agreed to be their God, bless them, and give them the Promised Land. This was a covenant, a legally binding contract, with each side agreeing to keep their side of the agreement.
However, the people of Israel broke that covenant, the promises that they made to Yahweh. They never remained faithful to worshiping only Him, and repeatedly broke the Law that He gave. The Lord never broke His side of the covenant. In the covenant there were punishments spelled out if the people broke their end of the agreement, yet that did not stop them from straying away from Him.
The prophet Jeremiah, the last great prophet before the people would be taken into captivity because of their repeated breaking of God’s covenant, spoke the words of our Scripture passage. Here the prophet brings the promise of God, that He would make a new covenant with the people (vs. 31). He describes the relationship of God with His people as being like that of a husband and wife (vs. 32). The marriage of a man and woman is like a covenant agreement, where the husband and wife make promises to each other. Throughout the Old Testament God’s Word describes the people of Israel as being an unfaithful wife to the Lord. Instead of permanently casting them off, like a husband would to an unfaithful wife, God says that He will make a new covenant with them.
Israel had failed to keep the old, Mosaic Covenant. God promised a new covenant, by which those who know Him would participate in the blessings of salvation (vs. 33). The Old Covenant, broken by the people, would be replaced by a New Covenant. The foundation of the New Covenant is God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 8:6-13).
This covenant is also for all people, both Jews and Gentiles, from the least to the greatest. No one was excluded from being able to come to God through His Son, the Lord Jesus. This covenant offers a unique, personal relationship with God Himself. His laws are now written on our hearts instead of stone, as the Old Covenant was (vs. 33).
As our brief Scripture passage closes, God gives a promise to all those who come into covenant agreement with Him. God promises that He will forgive the sins of those who come to Him in this New Covenant, that is, through the Lord Jesus, and will remember them no more. It is a blessing that the Lord does not remember our past sins, throwing them in our face again! How many times does someone tell us that they forgive us, only to keep bringing that offense up again and again? God does not do that to us!
Have you come to Jesus, accepting Him as your Savior, and are now a part of that New Covenant? If you have taken Jesus as your Savior, His Blood has washed away your sins, and now you are one of His people!
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