Newer Isn’t Always Better, But this Time It Is

Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  Jeremiah 31:31

Old is not necessarily bad, nor is new necessarily good.  When God promises to His people a new covenant, the comfort is not that this covenant is new.  The failure of the old covenant that God has established with His people was not with the covenant, nor God, but with fallen humanity.  We can rejoice that God has established a new covenant with His people that is different than the previous covenant.  In the old order of things, we failed to keep God’s law, loving God above all things and serving our neighbor in love.  God’s children broke His covenant even though He was always faithful.

What makes the new covenant different is that it is a unilateral agreement.  God indeed forgives our sins and chooses not to hold our sins against us.  He does this solely by His grace without any merit or worthiness within us.  What makes this covenant better than the former covenant is that there is nothing that we can mess up.  God does it all!  We are simply recipients of His abundant grace as forgiven sinners.

So we can also look forward to God making all things new in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.  Again, the blessing is not of things becoming new, but that God gives them all to us by His grace.  The covenant that He has established with us is accomplished through Christ and the shedding of His blood.  It is through the cross that God restores all things and by which He forgives our sins and remembers them no more.  As Christians, we rejoice in the old promises of the new covenant that salvation is given solely by grace, as God’s free gift to us.  During this Lenten season, may the promise of the new covenant bring you comfort and peace as you marvel over God’s grace for you!

Prayer - Almighty God, by Your great goodness mercifully look upon Your people that we may be governed and preserved evermore in body and soul; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Fraternally in Christ,
President Lee Hagan