The New Covenant Explained: What Jesus Actually Replaced at the Cross

There is a moment in the upper room the

night before the crucifixion that most

people have heard so many times it has

stopped landing with the weight it was

meant to carry.

Jesus takes a cup of wine. He holds it

up and he says something that connects

the meal happening in that room to a

promise made 700 years earlier by a

prophet sitting in the ruins of a nation

that had just been destroyed. This cup

is the new covenant in my blood which is

poured out for you. Luke 22:20.

The new covenant. Most people who have

heard those words in a communion service

their entire lives have never been told

what the word new actually means in that

sentence. They have never been told what

the old covenant was that the new one is

replacing. They have never been told

what specifically was wrong with the old

covenant that made a new one necessary.

They have never been told why Jeremiah,

seven centuries before the upper room,

was already announcing that the covenant

at Sinai was going to be replaced by

something better.

And without that background, without

understanding what Jesus is replacing

and why, the new covenant is just a

phrase, a religious term, something that

sounds important without being

understood. Here is what most people

never realize about the new covenant. It

is not a New Testament idea. It was

announced in the Old Testament by a

prophet who wept over the failure of the

covenant it was replacing. It was

anticipated in the Psalms. It was

described in Ezekiel. It was connected

by the writer of Hebrews to every detail

of the Levitical system that pointed

toward it. And Jesus inaugurated it not

as a new religion but as the fulfillment

of everything the old covenant was

always pointing toward. Stay with me

because by the end of this video you

will understand exactly what the new

covenant is, what it replaced, why the

replacement was necessary, and what it

means for every person who has received

it.

To understand the new covenant you have

to understand the old one. Not in the

vague sense of the Old Testament had

laws and the New Testament has grace.

That is a caricature that misrepresents

both testaments and produces a theology

that the biblical text cannot sustain.

The Old Covenant, the covenant that the

new covenant replaces, is the Mosaic

Covenant, the covenant made at Sinai,

Exodus 19 through 24.

The covenant that God made with Israel

40 days after they crossed the Red Sea,

while they were still in the wilderness,

before they had entered the promised

land.

Here is the context. God has just

rescued 2 million people from 400 years

of slavery. He has split the sea for

them. He has provided bread from heaven

and water from rocks. He has destroyed

the most powerful army in the ancient

world on their behalf. And now he brings

them to a mountain and makes them an

offer.

Exodus 19:5-6.

Now, therefore, if you will indeed obey

my voice and keep my covenant, you shall

be my treasured possession among all

peoples, for all the earth is mine. And

you shall be to me a kingdom of priests

and a holy nation. If you will obey, the

covenant is conditional. God's side of

the covenant is unconditional. He will

be their God. He will give them the

land. He will make them his treasured

possession.

But Israel's side of the covenant is

conditional on obedience. If you obey,

then these blessings follow.

If you do not obey, Deuteronomy 28:15-68

describes in devastating detail the

consequences that will follow.

And the people respond. Exodus 19:8.

All the people answered together and

said, "All that the Lord has spoken, we

will do. All that the Lord has spoken,

we will do."

The response of a people who do not yet

know themselves well enough to know what

they are promising.

The response of a people who, 40 days

earlier, were slaves, who have never

governed themselves, who have never

maintained a covenant relationship with

anyone, who are about to receive a body

of law so comprehensive, so demanding,

so requiring of the inner transformation

that none of them have yet undergone,

that their confident all that the Lord

has spoken we will do is simultaneously

sincere and catastrophically

overconfident. They mean it and they

cannot keep it. The law is given, 10

Commandments, then the full body of

civil, ceremonial, and moral law that

fills the rest of Exodus, all of

Leviticus, and substantial portions of

Numbers and Deuteronomy.

The covenant is ratified in Exodus 24

with blood.

Moses throws blood on the people. This

is the blood of the covenant and the

people repeat their promise, "All that

the Lord has spoken we will do and we

will be obedient." Exodus 24:7.

And then, while Moses is still on the

mountain receiving the rest of the

instructions, Israel breaks the

covenant. Exodus 32, the golden calf.

Moses has been on the mountain for 40

days. The people grow impatient. They go

to Aaron and demand gods to go before

them.

Aaron collects their gold jewelry, melts

it, fashions it into a calf, and says,

"These are your gods, oh Israel, who

brought you up out of the land of

Egypt." Exodus 32:4.

40 days. The ink on the covenant is not

yet dry. The blood that ratified it is

still on the people and they build a

golden calf.

Moses comes down from the mountain with

the tablets of the law in his hands. He

sees the calf and the dancing and he

throws the tablets down and shatters

them at the foot of the mountain.

Exodus 32:19.

The tablets of the covenant, written by

God, shattered in response to Israel's

first act of covenant violation.

The pattern is established before the

covenant is even fully implemented.

Israel will break the covenant. God will

judge and then restore. Israel will

break it again. God will judge and

restore again.

The pattern that the book of Judges

traces through seven cycles. The pattern

that the books of Kings trace through 40

kings. The pattern that the prophets

spent centuries announcing the

consequences of. Here is what most

people never realize about the Mosaic

Covenant and its repeated failure. The

problem was not the law.

Paul is explicit about this in Romans

7:12. The law is holy and the

commandment is holy and righteous and

good.

The law was good. The law accurately

described what righteousness looked

like. The law correctly identified what

God required of his covenant people. The

problem was the people. The law was

written on stone and the problem with

stone is that it is outside the person.

External. A standard to be reached

rather than a nature to be lived from.

You can know every word of a law written

on stone and still not have the inner

capacity to keep it.

You can agree with every commandment

intellectually and still find yourself

doing the opposite.

Romans 7:15-19.

Paul describing his own experience of

the law.

For I do not understand my own actions.

For I do not do what I want, but I do

the very thing I hate. I have the desire

to do what is right, but not the ability

to carry it out.

For I do not do the good I want, but the

evil I do not want is what I keep on

doing. The law shows you what you should

do. It does not give you the power to do

it. The law diagnoses the disease. It is

not the cure.

And a covenant built on the law, a

covenant that says if you obey you will

be blessed, is a covenant that Israel is

structurally unable to keep. Not because

the law is wrong, because the human

heart, without divine transformation, is

unable to consistently produce the

obedience the law requires.

This is the problem the new covenant is

designed to solve. And 700 years before

the upper room, Jeremiah names the

problem and announces the solution with

extraordinary precision.

Jeremiah 31:31-34.

One of the most important passages in

the entire Old Testament and one of the

most frequently quoted in the new.

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.

Not like the covenant that I made with

their fathers on the day when I took

them by the hand to bring them out of

the land of Egypt, my covenant that they

broke, though I was their husband,

declares the Lord. Not like the covenant

I made with their fathers. The new

covenant is explicitly distinguished

from the Mosaic covenant. It is not a

renewal of the old covenant. It is not a

revision or an improvement. It is

explicitly and deliberately different in

kind.

But this is the covenant that I will

make with the house of Israel after

those days, declares the Lord. I will

put my law within them, and I will write

it on their hearts, and I will be their

God, and they shall be my people.

And no longer shall each one teach his

neighbor, and each his brother, saying,

"Know the Lord," for they shall all know

me from the least of them to the

greatest, declares the Lord.

For I will forgive their iniquity, and I

will remember their sin no more.

Four specific differences between the

old covenant and the new covenant that

Jeremiah identifies. First,

location of the law. The old covenant

had law written on stone tablets,

outside of the person, an external

standard. The new covenant has law

written on hearts, inside the person,

not a standard to be reached but a

nature to be lived from. The

transformation is internal. The

obedience flows from within rather than

being imposed from without. Second, the

knowledge of God.

The old covenant required mediation,

priests, teachers, prophets, someone who

knew God telling others what God

required.

The new covenant produces direct

personal knowledge of God from the least

to the greatest.

Not information about God, knowledge of

God.

The Hebrew yada, intimate experiential

relational knowledge,

the same word used for the most intimate

human relationship. Every member of the

new covenant community knows God

personally, directly, without a human

intermediary.

Third,

universal access.

The old covenant was national. It

belonged to Israel.

Gentiles could join the covenant

community through circumcision and

conversion, but it was fundamentally an

ethnic and national covenant. The new

covenant is for all flesh. Joel 2:28,

from the least to the greatest, without

distinction of ethnicity or social

status or gender. Galatians 3:28,

there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither

slave nor free, neither male nor female,

for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Fourth, the forgiveness of sin. The old

covenant had an atonement system. The

sacrifices, the day of atonement, the

blood of bulls and goats applied to the

mercy seat. But Hebrews 10:4 says

explicitly that it is impossible for the

blood of bulls and goats to take away

sins. The old covenant atonement system

covered sin. It addressed sin

provisionally year by year, requiring

constant repetition.

The new covenant produces forgiveness so

complete that God will remember their

sin no more. Not covered, forgotten,

removed from the divine memory.

Here is what most people never realize

about Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah wrote it

while he was watching Jerusalem fall. He

was the prophet who had spent 40 years

warning that judgment was coming if

Israel did not repent. Nobody listened.

And now the Babylonian army was at the

gates, the temple was about to be

burned, the people were about to be

carried into exile. And in the middle of

that catastrophe, in the darkest moment

of Israel's covenant history, Jeremiah

announces that God is going to make a

new covenant, better than the one that

just failed, better than the one Israel

is in the process of breaking for the

final time. The announcement of grace

comes at the moment of maximum failure.

The promise of the new covenant arrives

precisely when the old covenant is

demonstrably, visibly, catastrophically

broken.

That timing is not accidental. It is the

pattern of the entire Bible.

The rescue who when the need for rescue

is undeniable.

Ezequiel adds another dimension to the

new covenant promise that is essential

for understanding what the new covenant

actually does. Ezequiel 36:26

and 27

I will give you a new heart and a new

spirit I will put within you. And I will

remove the heart of stone from your

flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And

I will put my spirit within you and

cause you to walk in my statutes and be

careful to obey my rules. I will cause

you to walk in my statutes. Not, I will

give you instructions and see if you

follow them. I will cause you to walk in

them. The obedience that the old

covenant demanded and Israel could not

consistently produce, the new covenant

will cause, not compel in the sense of

removing freedom. Cause in the sense of

providing the inner capacity, the

desire, the orientation that makes the

obedience natural rather than forced.

The heart of stone removed. The heart of

flesh given.

The spirit placed within. The old

covenant said, "Here is what

righteousness looks like. Now produce

it."

The new covenant says, "I'm going to put

inside you the capacity to live from

righteousness rather than straining

toward it."

Here is what most people never realize

about the Ezequiel 36 promise.

It resolves the exact problem that Paul

identifies in Romans 7. The person in

Romans 7 knows what is right and cannot

do it because the inner capacity is

missing.

The heart of stone cannot consistently

produce the obedience the law requires.

But when the heart of stone is removed

and the heart of flesh is given, when

the spirit is placed within, the dynamic

changes.

Not perfectly, not without ongoing

struggle, but fundamentally.

The direction of the inner life is

reoriented.

This is what Paul means in Romans 8:4

when he says that the righteous

requirement of the law might be

fulfilled in us who walk not according

to the flesh but according to the

spirit.

The law's requirement is still there.

The standard has not changed, but the

new covenant provides the inner

transformation, the spirit within, that

makes fulfilling that requirement

possible in a way it never was under the

old covenant.

Now we come to the upper room, the

moment when Jesus inaugurates the new

covenant that Jeremiah announced and

Ezekiel described. Matthew 26:26-28.

Now as they were eating, Jesus took

bread and after blessing it broke it and

gave it to the disciples and said,

"Take, eat. This is my body."

And he took a cup and when he had given

thanks, he gave it to them saying,

"Drink of it all of you for this is my

blood of the covenant which is poured

out for many for the forgiveness of

sins. My blood of the covenant. The

Greek haima diathekes.

The same phrase from Exodus 24:8 where

Moses throws blood on the people and

says, "This is the blood of the

covenant." Jesus is standing in the

upper room and reaching back across

1,500 years of Israel's covenant history

to the moment of the covenant's

inauguration and saying, "What that

blood began, I am now fulfilling."

But with a critical difference. At

Sinai, the blood was the blood of

animals, bulls and goats. The blood that

Hebrews 10:4 says cannot take away sins.

At the Last Supper, the blood is the

blood of Jesus himself, not a

substitute, not a preview. The actual

blood of the one in whom the fullness of

God dwells bodily. Colossians 2:9. And

the Greek word for new in the new

covenant at the Last Supper is kainos,

not neos. The difference matters

enormously. Neos means new in the sense

of recently made, brand new. A new thing

that did not exist before. If Jesus had

used neos, it would mean the new

covenant is an entirely different

covenant with no connection to what came

before, a complete replacement rather

than a fulfillment.

Kainos means new in the sense of

renewed, transformed, made new in

quality,

better than before.

The same essential reality elevated and

completed. When Paul says in 2

Corinthians 5:17 that if anyone is in

Christ, he is a new creation, the word

is kainos, not a different species, the

same human being renewed, transformed,

made new in quality. The new covenant is

kainos. It is the covenant relationship

between God and his people, the

relationship that has been present since

Genesis 12, since the Abrahamic

covenant, since God chose a people

through whom the whole world would be

blessed, renewed, and elevated and

completed into its final and permanent

form.

The old covenant was the educational

stage, the tutor, Galatians 3:24.

The law was our guardian until Christ

came.

The new covenant is the maturity to

which the tutor was always pointing.

Here is what most people never realize

about the Last Supper as covenant

ceremony.

Jesus is performing the covenant

ratification of the new covenant in the

upper room. He is doing what Moses did

at the foot of Sinai,

announcing the terms, speaking the

covenant words, applying the covenant

blood, but with two extraordinary

differences that we already touched on

in the blood covenant video. At Sinai,

Moses threw animal blood on the people

from outside. At the Last Supper, Jesus

offers his own blood in the form of the

cup to be received by the people, not

thrown on them, given to them to drink,

taken into them.

The covenant blood of the new covenant

is internalized in a way that the blood

of Sinai never was. And at Sinai, the

blood came from animals who were not

themselves party to the covenant.

At the Last Supper, the blood comes from

one of the covenant parties himself.

Jesus is simultaneously the one making

the covenant, the high priest offering

the covenant blood, and the sacrifice

whose blood seals it. He is the mediator

and the means, the promise maker and the

payment, Hebrews 9:15.

Therefore, he is the mediator of a new

covenant, so that those who are called

may receive the promised eternal

inheritance, since a death has occurred

that redeems them from the

transgressions committed under the first

covenant. The transgressions committed

under the first covenant. The new

covenant does not only address future

sins, it retroactively deals with

everything accumulated under the old

covenant. Every sin committed under the

Mosaic covenant that the blood of bulls

and goats covered but could not remove.

The new covenant blood removes it all

retroactively, completely, finally.

The letter to the Hebrews is the most

comprehensive treatment of what the new

covenant replaced in the entire New

Testament. And it builds its argument

with extraordinary precision across 13

chapters.

The central argument of Hebrews can be

stated in a single sentence.

Everything in the old covenant was a

shadow of the new covenant reality. And

now that the reality has arrived, the

shadow is no longer needed. Hebrews 8:5.

They serve a copy and shadow of the

heavenly things. The tabernacle, the

priesthood, the sacrificial system, the

day of atonement, the mercy seat, the

entire elaborate structure of the Mosaic

covenant's worship system is a shadow, a

copy, a representation of something more

real than itself. Hebrews 8:6. But as it

is, Christ has obtained a ministry that

is as much more excellent than the old

as the covenant he mediates is better

since it is enacted on better promises.

Better.

The Greek kreitton.

Superior in quality, more excellent,

more effective. The new covenant is

better than the old in every dimension.

Better mediator, better sacrifice,

better priesthood, better promises. And

it is enacted on better promises because

the promises of the new covenant are not

conditional on human performance.

Hebrews 8:8-12 quotes Jeremiah 31 in

full.

The longest Old Testament quotation in

the entire New Testament. The writer of

Hebrews is making a case and his primary

evidence is the prophet who announced

that the old covenant would be replaced.

He is saying, "Look, even in the Old

Testament, God was announcing that the

Mosaic covenant was temporary, that

something better was coming, that the

law on stone was always going to be

replaced by law on hearts." And then

Hebrews 8:13,

"In speaking of a new covenant, he makes

the first one obsolete. And what is

becoming obsolete and growing old is

ready to vanish away." Obsolete. The

Greek peplaokan,

to make old, to declare outdated, to

render no longer in force. The Mosaic

covenant is declared obsolete by the

same text that announced the new

covenant would come.

Not by the New Testament writers

deciding to abandon the Old Testament,

by Jeremiah, by the Old Testament

itself, anticipating its own replacement

seven centuries before the replacement

arrived. Hebrews 9 and 10 trace the

implications through the Levitical

system in detail.

The tabernacle was divided into two

sections, the holy place and the holy of

holies. The priest went into the holy

place daily.

But into the second section, the holy of

holies, only the high priest entered and

only once a year and never without

blood. Hebrews 9:7.

This arrangement was a parable. Hebrews

9:9. A living illustration.

The veil between the holy place and the

holy of holies was saying something. It

was saying that the way into the

presence of God was not yet open. Not

fully, not permanently. The high priest

could enter once a year with blood,

but the ordinary Israelite could not

enter at all. The access was restricted.

The presence was veiled.

The gap between God and his people was

real and maintained by the entire

architectural structure of the

tabernacle.

Hebrews 9:8.

The Holy Spirit was indicating that the

way into the holy places was not yet

opened as long as the first section was

still standing. Not yet opened.

The old covenant worship system was not

a permanent arrangement. It was a

temporary one, maintained until the time

came for the way to be fully and

permanently opened. And Hebrews 9:11 and

12 record when that time came. But when

Christ appeared as a high priest of the

good things that have come, then through

the greater and more perfect tent not

made with hands, that is not of this

creation, he entered once for all into

the holy places not by means of the

blood of goats and calves, but by means

of his own blood, thus securing an

eternal redemption.

Once for all. The Greek ephapax, once,

once only, once for all time, never to

be repeated.

The high priest of Israel entered the

holy of holies once a year, every year,

for over a thousand years. The same

ceremony, the same blood, the same mercy

seat, year after year after year,

because the blood of animals can cover,

but cannot permanently remove.

The ceremony had to be repeated because

the problem it addressed was not being

permanently solved. Jesus enters the

true holy of holies once, not annually,

once, and the redemption secured is

eternal, not a 12-month reprieve

requiring renewal next Yom Kippur.

Eternal. Permanent. Never to be repeated

because it never needs to be.

And Hebrews 10:11 through 14. And every

priest stands daily at his service,

offering repeatedly the same sacrifices

which can never take away sins.

But when Christ had offered for all time

a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down

at the right hand of God, waiting from

that time until his enemies should be

made a footstool for his feet.

For by a single offering he has

perfected for all time those who are

being sanctified.

He sat down. The most significant two

words in the entire argument of Hebrews.

The Levitical priest never sat down in

the holy of holies because the work was

never finished.

There was no chair in the holy of holies

because the priest had to keep standing,

keep working, keep offering, because the

offerings were never sufficient to

complete the task.

Jesus sat down because the work is

finished. The single offering, his own

blood, has accomplished what 10,000

annual Yom Kippur ceremonies could only

gesture toward.

He sat down because there is nothing

left to offer,

nothing left to add.

The new covenant is in force, permanent,

complete, sealed with blood that does

not need to be renewed. Tetelestai, it

is finished.

Now we need to address the most

important practical question the new

covenant raises.

What does it actually mean for the

person who has received it?

Hebrews 10 verses 15 through 17 returns

to Jeremiah 31 to answer this question.

And after saying, "I will put my laws on

their hearts and write them on their

minds," he adds, "I will remember their

sins and their lawless deeds no more. I

will remember their sins no more." The

Greek oume menesto, a double negative in

Greek is the strongest possible form of

negation, not at all, never, under no

circumstances will I remember them. The

forgiveness of the new covenant is not,

"I am aware of your sins, but choosing

not to hold them against you." It is, "I

will not remember them."

The divine memory, which is infinite and

perfect, will not recall them.

Here is what most people never realize

about this promise. It does not mean God

becomes ignorant of what happened. It

means God chooses not to bring the sin

into account. The judicial record is

cleared, the debt is marked paid, the

ledger is zeroed.

Not because the sin did not happen, but

because the payment for it has been

accepted and the matter is legally

closed. And then Hebrews 10 verse 18,

"Where there is forgiveness of these,

there is no longer any offering for

sin."

No longer any offering for sin. The

sacrificial system is not just replaced,

it is rendered unnecessary, not wrong,

not evil, unnecessary.

The thing it was designed to accomplish

has been accomplished permanently by a

better sacrifice. The shadow is no

longer needed because the substance has

arrived. But Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36

both point to something beyond

forgiveness.

Something that forgiveness alone does

not produce. The inner transformation.

The law on the heart, the new spirit,

the cause you to walk in my statutes.

This is where Pentecost fits into the

new covenant theology. Acts 2.

The spirit poured out on all flesh

exactly as Joel promised, exactly as

Ezekiel described. The spirit that

causes obedience placed with every

member of the new covenant community.

1 Corinthians 3:16.

Do you not know that you are God's

temple and that God's spirit dwells in

you? Not the tabernacle, not the temple

in Jerusalem. You.

The individual believer is the dwelling

place of the spirit of God. The same

presence that filled the tabernacle in

Exodus. That filled the temple in 1

Kings. That Ezekiel watched depart and

promised would return. That presence now

dwells inside every person in whom the

new covenant is in force.

Here is what most people never realize

about the connection between the new

covenant and the indwelling spirit.

The forgiveness of the new covenant

deals with the past. The spirit of the

new covenant deals with the present and

future.

Forgiveness removes the guilt of what

has been done. The indwelling spirit

provides the capacity for what needs to

be done. Both are essential. Both are

promised in the new covenant. And both

are received not through human effort or

religious performance, but through faith

in the one who inaugurated the covenant

with his own blood.

There is one more dimension of the new

covenant that is easy to miss, but that

changes everything about how you

understand your own spiritual life.

The new covenant is not just about

individual salvation. It is about

community.

Jeremiah 31 says, "They shall all know

me from the least of them to the

greatest." Not "Each individual will

know me privately." All of them, from

the least to the greatest.

The new covenant creates a community of

people who will have direct access to

God, who will have the law written on

their hearts, who are all being caused

to walk in his statutes by the same

spirit dwelling in all of them.

Ephesians 2:19-22.

So then you are no longer strangers and

aliens, but you are fellow citizens with

the saints and members of the household

of God, built on the foundation of the

apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus

himself being the cornerstone, in whom

the whole structure being joined

together grows into a holy temple in the

Lord.

In him you also are being built together

into a dwelling place for God by the

spirit. A dwelling place for God by the

spirit.

The new covenant community, the church,

is the temple of the new covenant, not a

building, not an institution, a

community of people in whom the spirit

dwells, joined together, growing into a

holy temple, becoming the place where

the presence of God is found in the

world. This is the fulfillment of what

God said in Exodus 25:8.

Build me a sanctuary that I may dwell in

your midst. The tabernacle was one

expression of that dwelling. The temple

was another.

But the new covenant community, the body

of Christ indwelt by the spirit, is the

final and permanent expression.

God dwelling in his people, not above

them in a cloud, not between cherubim

behind a veil, within them, among them,

through the spirit that the new covenant

provides to every member from the least

to the greatest.

Here is where every thread converges.

The new covenant is not a revision of

the Mosaic covenant. It is its

fulfillment and replacement.

The Mosaic covenant was given to a

specific people at a specific moment in

history to accomplish a specific

purpose. It revealed the character of

God. It defined what righteousness

looked like. It maintained the covenant

relationship between God and Israel

through the sacrificial system until the

time came for the better covenant that

the sacrificial system was previewing.

It was the shadow, the preview, the

tutor.

And when the tutor's work was done, when

the one the tutor was pointing to

arrived, the tutor stepped back.

Not because the tutor was wrong,

because the tutor had done its job

perfectly.

Galatians 3:25

But now that faith has come, we are no

longer under a guardian.

The new covenant provides what the old

covenant could not. Forgiveness that

does not need to be renewed annually. A

heart transformed from within, rather

than a standard imposed from without.

Direct personal knowledge of God without

human mediation. The spirit of God

dwelling inside every member of the

covenant community, causing them to walk

in the ways of God.

And access to the presence of God that

is permanent, universal, and open to

everyone regardless of ethnicity, social

status, or religious background.

This is what Jesus inaugurated in the

upper room. This is what the cross

accomplished. This is what the

resurrection confirmed. And this is what

the spirit poured out at Pentecost began

applying to the lives of every person

who receives what the new covenant

offers.

The cup that Jesus held in the upper

room was not a symbol of a religious

tradition. It was the ratification

ceremony of the most significant

covenant in the history of creation,

sealed with blood that does not need to

be renewed, enacted on promises that do

not depend on human performance,

providing transformation that the old

covenant could describe but never

produce.

When you receive the new covenant, you

receive a forgiven past, a transformed

present, and a guaranteed future in the

community of the God who said, "I will

be their God, and they shall be my

people." And who has now made that

promise permanent in the blood of his

own son.

The old covenant said, "Here is what

righteousness looks like. Keep it and

live. Break it and face the

consequences." The new covenant says, "I

will put righteousness inside you. And

then, I will remember your failures no

more."

That is what Jesus replaced at the

cross, and the replacement is better in

every possible way.

If this study meant something to you, if

the new covenant makes more sense today

than it ever has before,

the single most helpful thing you can do

is subscribe.

Every video on this channel goes this

carefully into the language, the

history, and the meaning behind what the

Bible actually says.

Leave a comment. It can be just one

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helps other people find this

conversation.

And there are people out there who have

been taking communion their entire lives

without understanding what the words

this is my blood of the new covenant

actually mean. Share it with someone who

thinks the Old Testament and the New

Testament are two different religions.

Share it with someone who feels like

they keep failing to live up to what God

requires. Share it with someone who

needs to know that the new covenant does

not just forgive what you have done. It

begins transforming who you are. God

bless you, and please keep us in your

prayers.