Christian Pure

What Is the New Covenant? God’s Law Written on the Heart

Christian Pure Team

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Summary

  • The new covenant is God’s promise, given through Jeremiah, to write his law on his people’s hearts and to remember their sin no more (Jeremiah 31:31–34).
  • The covenant it is set beside is the one made at Sinai, written on tables of stone and sealed with the blood of offerings, which Hebrews calls “the first”.
  • Jesus took up the promise at the Last Supper, calling the cup “the new testament in my blood” (Luke 22:20).
  • The King James Bible says “testament” because the Greek word means both a covenant and a will, and the names of the Old and New Testaments come from it.
  • Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah in full and calls Jesus the mediator of a better covenant, sealed by one sacrifice for sins for ever.
  • Catholic, Reformed and dispensationalist Christians relate the new covenant to Israel in different ways, each in its own words.

The new covenant is God’s promise to write his law on his people’s hearts and to forgive their sin for good. He spoke it through the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31–34), and Jesus took it up at the Last Supper with the cup: “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20). The first covenant, made at Mount Sinai, was written on “tables of stone, written with the finger of God” (Exodus 31:18). The…

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Bibliography (Click to show)
  • The Holy Bible, King James Version (public domain), via BibleGateway: Exodus 24:3–8; 31:18; Jeremiah 1:1–3; 31:31–34; Ezekiel 1:1–3; 36:26–27; Matthew 26:26–28; Mark 14:24; Luke 22:19–20; Romans 11:25–29; 1 Corinthians 11:23–26; 2 Corinthians 3:3–6, 14; Hebrews 8:6–13; 9:15–22; 10:11–18; 12:24; 13:20–21. Word counts made on the Project Gutenberg King James Bible.
  • Catechism of the Catholic Church, Libreria Editrice Vaticana: 121, 781, 839, 1965.
  • The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 7, as published by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
  • Doctrinal Statement, Dallas Theological Seminary.
  • Robert Dean Jr., “One New Covenant [B]”, Hebrews 8:6–8, Hebrews series lesson 113 (3 January 2008), on dispensationalist views including Lewis Sperry Chafer’s.
  • Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24 in the NIV and ESV, via BibleGateway, for comparison.
  • Eucharistic Prayer II, The Roman Missal (English translation, 2010), Liturgy Office of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.
  • Strong’s Greek 1242, diatheke, with Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, via Bible Hub.
  • M. G. Easton, “Testament”, Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), via Bible Study Tools.

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