In this period of God’s grace, He has not put us under covenant, yet we get new-covenant blessing. Speaking generally, any terms by which God sets man in relations of a definite character with Himself may be called a covenant. Scripture speaks especially of the “everlasting” covenant, that of the bruising of the woman’s seed and the final overthrow of the power of evil, of the “old,” which was a covenant of works, and of the “new,” which is purely of grace and thus unconditional. This last is to be made “with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in My covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people, and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:8-138For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: 9Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. 10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: 11And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. 12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. 13In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:8‑13)). But when we turn to Hebrews 10:16-1716This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. (Hebrews 10:16‑17), we find this quotation from Jeremiah 31 summarized in these words: “I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more,” and this is distinctly constituted a part of the blessing of Christian believers, so that while the new covenant is not made with us, but with Israel, we are participants in the blessings of this new covenant.
The Everlasting Covenant
Now, the Lord spoke of the new covenant as in His blood, and the Apostle, in Hebrews 13, speaks of “the blood of the everlasting covenant,” which is clearly the precious blood of Christ. The only basis of all unconditional blessing is thus exhibited in connection with these two covenants. God’s original promise of blessing to man through the bruised Seed of the woman and the specific blessing which shall by-and-by be enjoyed by Israel and Judah are alike unconditional, because they are both founded on the eternal efficacy of that blood concerning which the Lord said, “This is My blood of the new [covenant] which is shed for many.” Thus, whenever we partake of the cup, it is the pledge of these new covenant blessings, and the blood which it symbolizes is the blood of that new covenant, that blood which is the basis of God’s righteousness in grace now and in glory hereafter.
The Blessings of the Covenant
Since covenant and conditions go along together and conditions imply competency to fulfill conditions, we clearly see that, as believers in Christ, we are not judicially set under any kind of covenant or under conditions of a covenant character. On the other hand, we happily observe that we have the blessings which the new covenant, when established, will bring to Israel, every one of them already ours, received from Christ in glory! The Apostle could fittingly speak of himself as an able minister of the new covenant, for while it is not yet established, it is by anticipation (for all things are ours) ministered to the church of God. This is really the character which the gospel takes in 2 Corinthians 4. Paul ministers the unconditional blessing of the new covenant to the Gentiles, which glad tidings, if hid, were hid where Satan had cast a veil of moral blindness over his votaries. Wherever they were received, it was because God had shone into hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Referring to 2 Corinthians 3, he speaks of those to whom he wrote as Christ’s epistle ministered by the Apostle, the writing of the Spirit of the living God, not, as of old, upon stone tables and ordained by angels, but on the fleshy tablets of their hearts. And the Apostle had confidence before God about this, for, disclaiming personal competency for such service, he avows his competency to be of God, who had made him a competent minister of the new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit. Then rising higher, with one inspired touch he marks the contrast between the two things; the letter condemns, but the Spirit gives life — thus bringing forward the Spirit of God objectively, to whom he returns in verse 17, after the digression of verses 7-16, which form a parenthesis, and at which we will now look for a little.
The Two Ministries
We have here what constitutes the ministry of the new covenant as contrasted with the old. The latter, it is admitted, “began with glory” (vs. 7 JND), for it began when Moses’ face shone so brightly that the children of Israel could not bear to look upon it. But this was after he had smashed the first tables in holy indignation and received the second in his character as mediator, receiving these written with the finger of God on the ground of redemption foreseen. Thus, when he came down this time among the people, he carried the law in his arms and the grace in his face. (Compare 2 Corinthians 4:6.) The Apostle then is speaking in contrast. He does not here say that the old covenant was glorious, but that the glory it was introduced with was merely temporary, and even that was too much for Israel. Moreover, the flash of glory it began with did not alter the fact that it was a ministry of death. The ministry of the new was that of a life-giving Spirit, and it subsists in glory, having a glory that shall never be done away. Another contrast is between the ministry of condemnation, which had a measure of glory, as we have seen, and the ministry of righteousness which abounds in glory. Thus, the former covenant ministered condemnation and death, but God glorified it in grace (on account of mediatorship, and in connection with the person of the mediator) with a measure of temporary glory accompanied with a veil. But for us the new covenant is a ministration of the Spirit. It is crowned with surpassing glory and is without a veil either upon our hearts or upon the face of Christ who is our Mediator — the true Moses gone into the presence of the Lord. For, be it remarked, when Moses “went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he took the veil off until he came out” (Ex. 34:3434But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the vail off, until he came out. And he came out, and spake unto the children of Israel that which he was commanded. (Exodus 34:34)), typical there of Christ surely, but also of our own blessed place and portion now in Him, for there is no veil upon our hearts (alas! there is upon Israel’s), and there is no veil upon our faces either, when we go in before the Lord. So, also, when Israel shall turn to the Lord, there will be no longer any veil — they will find it is taken away.
Liberty and Transformation
There the parenthesis ends, and two things follow connected with verse 6 and which form a corollary to our subject, namely, first, the liberty of the Spirit which His presence will certainly secure and, second, transformation, unknown under the old covenant. There could be no transformation in the absence of a transforming object, and that object could only be a glorified Christ. Beholding Him upon whose face is no veil, His image is produced in us, such transformation from glory to glory being by the Lord the Spirit.
This then constitutes Paul’s ministry of the new covenant, its present ministration to the church before it is yet made. In the higher character it has to us, it evidently reaches to the reproduction of a glorified Christ in His saints on the earth, that is to say, not our standing before God in glory, but the direct effect of the glory upon our state here.
May the fruit of this wonderful ministry be more and more seen in us, to His present and eternal praise!
W. Rickards, adapted