New Covenant

Jeremiah's Prophecy

Writing as Judah's kingdom collapsed toward exile, Jeremiah delivered one of the Old Testament's most striking promises of hope: 'the days come,' says the LORD, 'that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah' — one 'not... according to the covenant that I made with their fathers' at the Exodus, which Israel broke despite God's faithfulness to it. This new covenant would be different in kind, not just content: God would 'put my law in their inward parts, and… write it in their heart,' rather than on stone tablets, and would 'forgive their iniquity' and 'remember their sin no more' (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Where the old covenant depended on external law and ongoing sacrifice, this one promised internal transformation and permanent forgiveness.

Instituted by Christ

At his final Passover meal with the Twelve, Jesus took the cup and declared, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you' (Luke 22:20) — directly claiming Jeremiah's promised covenant as his own, sealed not with an animal's blood as at Sinai (Exodus 24:8) but with his own. Paul repeats the same words in his account of the Lord's Supper, instructing the church to keep doing this 'in memory of me' (1 Corinthians 11:25) — meaning the church's ongoing practice of communion is itself a continual proclamation that the new covenant Jeremiah foresaw has arrived in Christ.

Hebrews' Extended Argument

The book of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah's prophecy at length (Hebrews 8:8-12) and draws out its full implication: 'In that he says, "A new covenant," he has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and grows aged is near to vanishing away' (Hebrews 8:13) — the very existence of a promised new covenant means the old Mosaic covenant, with its repeated animal sacrifices, was always meant to be temporary. Hebrews goes on to call Jesus 'the mediator of a new covenant,' explaining that his death provides redemption from transgressions committed even 'under the first covenant' (Hebrews 9:15) — his one sacrifice retroactively covering what the old system's sacrifices could only ever symbolically, repeatedly gesture toward, never actually remove (Hebrews 10:1-4, 10-14).

Scripture references

• Jeremiah 31:31-34 — The new covenant promised centuries before Christ
• Luke 22:20 — Jesus institutes it at the Last Supper
• 1 Corinthians 11:25 — Paul's account of the Lord's Supper
• Hebrews 8:8-13 — Jeremiah's prophecy quoted; the old covenant declared obsolete
• Hebrews 9:15 — Christ as mediator of the new covenant

Further reading

• Got Questions: What is the New Covenant?
• Encyclopaedia Britannica: Covenant (religion)