6to7Life

The Biblical Truth:
Today we all live under God’s New Covenant

A verse to point us to that truth:
Hebrews 8:13 In speaking of a new covenant He has made the first one old. Now that which is decaying and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Our understanding of the Bible can lead us to read it with a grace perspective, a law perspective, or a combination of the two. That is why it is very important when we read our Bible to know that it is divided into a ‘New Testament’ and an ‘Old Testament’ and what section we are reading. If you want to truly understand the Bible, a good starting place is to know what this truth means.

The division between the Old and New Testaments greatly affects how we understand the Bible. These two testaments (or covenants) show a major shift in how God relates to man. We do not live under the Old Testament (Covenant) – we live under the New Testament (Covenant).

The Old Testament was a covenant that God made with Abraham and reaffirmed with the nation of Israel. It was His agreement with the Jewish nation about the relationship that they had together.

Leviticus 26:46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws that the LORD made between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

Psalms 147:19-20 He shows His word to Jacob, and His statutes and His judgments to Israel. 20 He has not dealt so with any other nation; they have not known His judgments. Praise the LORD!

This means that the Gentiles – anyone who was not a Jew – were not part of the Old Covenant. We were never meant to live under the Old Covenant or The Law. Keep this in mind as you read God’s Word – the entire Bible was written for you, but not all of it was written to you!

Romans 2:14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, not having the law, are a law unto themselves,

To understand it correctly, the Old Testament (Covenant) did not actually have anything to do with the laws of Moses. God gave the laws of Moses to the Nation of Israel a little over 430 years after He made His Covenant with them through Abraham. God knew that they would not be able to live up to those Laws that He gave them. Although God knew they would not keep the law, the Nation of Israel thought they could! This was a show of their own self-righteousness.

Romans 5:20 But the law entered, so that sin might increase, but where sin increased, grace abounded much more,

We need to make a distinction between these two Covenants – the Covenant of Abraham (Old) and the Covenant of Grace (New). We also need to understand that they cannot be mixed. When the time was right, God set the Old Testament aside and completely declared it ‘faulty’.

Hebrews 8:7-8 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no occasion would have been sought for a second. 8 For finding fault with them, God says: “Surely the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

The New Testament (Covenant) is not like the old one. It is completely different. The Old Covenant is nothing like the New Covenant.

Hebrews 8:13 In speaking of a new covenant He has made the first one old. Now that which is decaying and growing old is ready to vanish away.

If we fail to make the distinction between the Old and the New Covenants, we will become conflicted and confused when we read the Bible. It is critical, if we want to avoid confusion, to make the distinction between the New and Old Testaments.

Many people would say that the New Testament begins with Matthew, because that is where the division is made in their Bible – the Old Testament ends with the book of Malachi and the New Testament begins with Matthew. However, this is not where God divided the Covenants.

Hebrews 9:16-17 For where there is a will, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. 17 For a will has force after men are dead, since it has no force at all while the testator lives.

Jesus made the New Covenant for us, but it was not valid, or put into effect, while He lived. It only became valid when He died. The New Covenant began at Christ’s death.

Hebrews 10:9-10 then He said, “See, I have come to do Your will, O God.” He takes away the first that He may establish the second. 10 By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

Romans 5:19 For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One the many will be made righteous.

God could not have left the Old Covenant in place because when it comes to knowing Him, experiencing Him, and pleasing Him, it has nothing to do with our efforts to behave. Instead, it has everything to do with His grace that allows us to have Life – and Life abundantly.

A challenge to you would be to read the New Testament with new eyes. Begin to read it through both a lens of Grace under the New Covenant and also with an understanding that everything that was said before Christ went to the cross and died for you was under the Old Covenant.