The New Covenant

With Whom was it Made?—Many have the idea that the old covenant was made with the Jews, but that the new covenant was made with the Gentiles. This is a great mistake, as will readily be seen by reading the scripture. "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." Jer. 31:31. (See also Heb. 8:8.) Thus we see the new covenant was made with the children of the very persons with whom the first covenant was made. This settles it without further controversy. Let no one talk, then, of the covenant with the Gentiles; for God never made such a covenant.

What are the Conditions?—Does the new covenant set aside the law of God? or does it enforce it? We should not believe what men say against what the Bible says: "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 I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Jer. 31:33. Nothing can be plainer than this,—"I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." He does not say he will give them a new law, but a law which was the law of God in the days of Jeremiah. Moreover, it is the law of God the Father, not the law of Christ, which is thus to be put into the hearts of his children in the new covenant; for it is the Father and Israel between whom the new covenant is made. Christ is only the mediator of the new covenant (Heb. 12:24); not the proprietor or maker of it.

That very law which was in the old covenant is to be written in the heart in the new covenant. If any man denies this, he squarely contradicts the word of God; for Paul, in discoursing about the new covenant, quotes the very words of Jeremiah, and applies them to the gospel covenant. He says, "I will put my laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts." Heb. 8:10. And again, Paul notices this condition of the new covenant as the main item: "This 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; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more," Heb. 10:16, 17. We need nothing plainer than this.

Who is the Mediator of the New Testament?—Jesus Christ is expressly, declared to be the mediator of the new covenant. Thus Paul says of him: "Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant," etc. Heb. 12:24. He came from God for the express purpose of introducing the doctrines and terms of the new covenant, and it was made between God and Israel, Christ being the mediator between the two parties.

When was this New Covenant to be Introduced?—Dan. 9:24-27 gives the exact date, but we have not space here to examine this important passage; but suffice it to say, the space of seventy prophetic weeks, or four hundred and ninety years, was allotted the Jewish nation. This period was to begin when the decree went forth to restore Jerusalem. That decree is recorded in Ezra 7, and was made in the year 457 B.C. From this decree it was to be sixty-nine weeks, or four hundred and eighty-three years, to the Messiah. This brings us to the year A.D. 27, the very year in which Jesus began his ministry. (See Mark 1.) Here is where he was anointed with the Holy Ghost, and thus was formally made the Messiah. God's voice from heaven declared him to be his Son, and John said, "Behold the Lamb of God." Here is Where the gospel began, and here is where Jesus Christ, the mediator, began to preach the principles of the new covenant.

One week, or seven years, Daniel said should be allotted to introduce and confirm the new covenant. Dan. 9:27. It was just seven years, or one, prophetic week, from the time Jesus Christ began to preach the gospel until the apostles ceased to preach to the Jewish nation alone, and turned to the Gentiles and began the great work of evangelizing the heathen. The close of that one week, A.D. 84, came about the time when Stephen was martyred by the Sanhedrin, when Paul was converted, when the gospel was preached to the Samaritans, when Peter was sent to preach the gospel to Cornelius, the Gentile, and when Christian converts were no longer confined to the Jews.

The new covenant, or the gospel, then, began to be preached by Jesus Christ. This is most expressly declared in all the Gospels. "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." Mark 1:1. This is as plain as anything can make it—"the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ." As soon as he was baptized it says, "Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying; The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe the gospel." Mark 1:14, 15. Christ, then, preached the gospel and commanded men to repent and believe it. Christ immediately chose his apostles, and began to teach them the doctrine of the new covenant. To the public he spoke in parables, but to his disciples he carefully explained everything in private. "And with many such parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it. But without a parable spake he not unto them; and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples." Mark 4:33, 34. In his last interview with them, he strictly commanded them to go and preach the gospel to every nation, teaching them "to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Matt. 28:20. What were they to teach?—Just what he had taught. In harmony with this, Paul says: "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him?" Heb. 2:8.

It will be noticed that the gospel which the apostles afterward confirmed was just what Jesus began to teach. And so we have this fact prominently referred to everywhere, that the work which the apostles afterward carried forward was just that which Jesus himself preached from the beginning of his ministry. Thus Luke says, "The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up." Acts 1:1, 2.

Jesus began to do and to teach until he was taken up, and so when an apostle was chosen to fill the place of the fallen Judas, it was expressly declared that they must select one who had been with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry. (See Acts 1:21, 22.) Why was this?—Because it must be someone who had heard the teachings of Christ, and hence could properly teach to others the terms of the new covenant. And Peter, when preaching the gospel to Cornelius, places the beginning of that gospel at the baptism of Jesus by John. "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all); that word I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power." Acts 10:36-38.

This fact, then, that the gospel of the new covenant was preached by Jesus Christ from the first day of his public ministry, is beyond dispute.

The mediator of the new covenant had now come to supersede the old covenant; but Jesus was careful to have the new covenant offered only to the Jews; because the Lord had promised that this new covenant was to be made with the house of Israel. So when he sent his apostles to preach the gospel, he said to them, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Matt. 10:5, 6. Paul says that it was necessary that the word of God should first be spoken to the Jews. Acts 18:46. The reader will notice further that the apostles carefully avoided preaching the gospel to any one but the Jews, until the termination of that one week, or seven years, which ended A.D. 34. Thus we read: "Now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen traveled as far Phenice, and Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only." Acts 11:19.

Immediately after this, as soon as that one week which was set apart for the introduction and confirmation of the new covenant, was ended, the gospel having settled this point, let us notice what Christ taught during his ministry. Christ had come as the Saviour of the world;—the Saviour of all men,—and he tasted death for every man, Gentile as well as Jew. All that he did and taught after he begin his ministry, every principle he inculcated, every command he gave,—all this was afterward to be taught to all nations by his apostles. "Go ye therefore and teach all nations. . . to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you." Matt. 28:19, 20. So whatever law Jesus taught his disciples to keep, that is the law for the Gentiles to keep. None will deny this.

The very first sermon Christ ever preached, the sermon on the mount, is acknowledged by all to be the most wonderful statement of Christian principle to be found anywhere in the Bible. This sermon might properly be called his inaugural sermon. In it he sets forth the grand outline of all the principles in the new covenant, which he had done to establish. It was not something belonging to the old Jewish age. Every line of it is Christian doctrine, as any one will acknowledge who will look it over. He closes it by saying, "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock." Matt. 7:24. These teachings of Christ, then, were to govern them in the future.

Now again, what did he say about God's law? what did he teach about God's Sabbath? Did he set these aside? or did he confirm them? It will be noticed that if Christ was to introduce a new law and a new Sabbath, this was the very time in which he should have done it. He had come to teach the new covenant. If that new covenant contained a new Sabbath or a new law, should he not have plainly taught it right here?—Most certainly, and he should have set the example by keeping it himself. Everyone knows that he never said a word about any such new Sabbath or new law; but he did confirm in the most explicit language the ten commandments, every word of them.