What is the New Covenant?

What is the New Covenant?

In order to understand Christianity one must understand what the new covenant is. In Old Testament times covenants were made to form an agreement or unbreakable bond between two people or groups of people. God of the Old Testament made unbreakable bonds or covenants with His people Israel. The Old Testament is a Covenant between God and His people, which Moses brought to the people. It was founded on the Law, with consequences for obedience and disobedience. The people not only had the law, but they had a sacrificial system for dealing with sin. Animals were sacrificed to cover, not remove sin, and there were priests that fulfilled this service to God. Mankind still had the guilt of their sins because the blood of bulls and goats couldn't take away sins. "But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." Hebrews 10:3-4 | ESV

Why then did God require this? Because in God's plan, the world was waiting for a Saviour, but God had to make provision for the people's sins before the appointed time of Christ's first coming. Jesus was not the kind of Saviour that they were expecting though. His Kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, but it also currently is an invisible Kingdom. Jesus preached a message that didn't resonate with the people of His time. He taught that suffering had a purpose and that purpose is redemptive. They were expecting a King that would bring peace to the world, but this isn't the purpose of the New Covenant that Jesus set up. When Jesus comes a second time, He will bring everlasting peace to a redeemed world and His redeemed people.

But in order to be a part of that redeemed community then, we must be a part of it now. Part of what makes us a part of God's redeemed community is being a part of the New Covenant or Testament. The new covenant is founded on love, love for God and love for our neighbour. When we sin against God in this way, we need to repent. God allows men and women freedom in this new covenant and it is ratified in the blood of Jesus, which not only covers our sin, but removes it. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17 | ESV This is Mike.

Comments

Catholic Identity.

I was born into the Catholic Church and was baptized as an infant, I had my first communion and reconciliation as a child, and was confirmed as a teenager. Although I was never devout, I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Saviour when I was 21 through an evangelical Christian radio ministry, which in turn gave new life to my Catholic faith. Although I remained a Catholic, I identified as a born again Christian. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I learned the difference between the two denominations and what they taught about being born again. Regardless, there was a significant change in my life back then, which continues to this day. Being Catholic is much like an identity to me and I remember growing up under the papacy of St. Pope John Paul II. The culture I grew up in was largely affected by his papacy, and the way the culture viewed the church was significantly different from the way the current culture views it. Growing up, the pope didn’t try to be rele...

Age of Brokenness.

We are living in an age of brokenness, no matter what age you are, you probably have been touched with relationships falling apart, which causes more and more people to live in isolation. In this generation there is less of an incentive to heal and reconcile relationships, but that doesn’t excuse the amount of people who are broken. Why people don’t seem to be motivated to heal relationships is because our beliefs about faith and God have changed, really giving us less of an incentive to do what our religion says. If I act from my personal beliefs, but the person that I am responding to has abandoned religious beliefs, than the response to my wanting things to be better can be misinterpreted and rejected then by someone else. Generally when a society has expectations about broken relationships, loneliness and isolation, and the beliefs are generally accepted, society becomes a more compassionate society, because all value the same things. When religious values are undermined and ...

The Biblical Meaning of “Life in the Spirit.”

“Life in the Spirit” is an example that the Apostle Paul gives in the book of Romans starting in chapter 5 and going through to chapter 8. He begins by telling us we are justified by faith (5:1), and have gained access by faith into the grace of God (5:2). We have been delivered from God’s wrath (5:9) and we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son (5:10). He goes on to explain that through Adam all die (5:12), and that the free Gift of God brings justification and righteousness to the believing sinner (5:15-17). Through our conversion we are baptized into Christ and into his death, which frees us from the law and makes us dead to sin (6:2-4). He explains that just as Christ was raised from the dead, we are given new life in Christ (6:4). Our old unregenerate self was crucified with Christ so that our body of sin might be done away with (6:5-6). Because we have died to sin, we now submit ourselves to God being that we are now under grace, not the law (6:8-1...

The Super Blogosphere of a parallel word.

Search This Blog