God's Blood Covenant - Part 5 - The New Covenant Unveiled

What if the law was never the destination but the signpost leading to a deeper promises-kept reality? We open the door to the new covenant by tracing the path from Abraham and Moses through centuries of silence to the moment Jesus lifted bread and cup and declared a relationship sealed in his own body and blood. Along the way, we explore how tradition overshadowed love, why Jesus healed on the Sabbath to reveal mercy’s priority, and how his words—“You have heard…but I say”—shifted righteousness from external rule-keeping to a transformed heart.<br><br>We walk through the Last Supper and unpack why communion is not a ritual to perform but a memorial that anchors us in forgiveness, belonging, and hope. Drawing on Jeremiah’s promise of a law written on hearts and Isaiah’s vision of a servant who becomes a covenant and a light to the nations, we connect the dots: Jesus doesn’t abolish the law; he fulfills it by embodying what it always aimed for. From the wineskins metaphor to the claim “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” we look at why old frameworks can’t contain new life and how “It is finished” announces the end of striving and the beginning of grace-secured belonging.<br><br>You’ll hear four concise ways Jesus completes the story—fulfilling messianic expectation, completing the law’s purpose, becoming the once-for-all sacrifice, and turning conditional blessings into eternal security for all who believe. If you’ve wondered who God’s chosen people are now, or whether ancestry and effort can carry you across the finish line, this conversation points to a better answer: faith in the One who keeps the covenant perfectly. Tune in, reflect at the table of remembrance, and consider what it means to live as a new creation. If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help others find hope and restoration.

Transcript

Series Context And Big Question

Lynne 0:00

You are listening Higher Realm with Lynne Little. Our program highlights biblical strategies for living through life's difficulties and finding your path to healing. We tackle issues particular to those who have experienced painful loss in any form. Lynn is the founder and president of Lynn Little Ministries and the author of Missing Lisa, A Parent Grieves, and Finding God in Death and Life, A Passage Through Grief. Now, here's Lynne. Hello, and welcome to the fifth episode of God's Blood Covenant. As we go through this series for the sake of clarification, and by way of providing a synopsis of sorts, it's important to note that the foundation of God's redemptive plan rests upon two key covenants, both of which involved the shedding of blood. The old covenant, the one God made with Abraham, was instituted with circumcision. The new covenant, the one God made with Jesus, and through him all believers, was instituted by the shedding of his blood. Today we're introducing the new covenant, the one in which we are living now. If you have followed us in the series, by now you may have been tempted to sort of envy all the privileges enjoyed by the recipients of the old covenant. You may have even questioned if only the Jews could qualify as God's chosen people, whether they were uniquely selected for these covenants, or if others qualify as well. Perhaps you've even wondered what it would be like to be so favored of God. Who exactly are God's chosen people? Does ethnic descent alone guarantee covenant blessings? Who qualifies as being of Abraham's seed? We'll address these points in the next several episodes. But we'll first start our exploration in the four gospels and discover how, when, and where Jesus ushered in the new covenant. Later, we'll discuss how the new covenant unfolded through the revelation given to the apostle Paul. Let's begin with a little background. After the reign of King Solomon, King David's son, there was no new revelation from God in the land. After the prophet Malachi in 450 BC, there was no prophetic voice in Israel. The silence was deafening. The people had not kept any of the terms of the covenant, therefore God was silent. They were ruled by a succession of kings, some good, but most dreadful, who did not encourage the people to return to the Yahweh of their covenant. The people endured invasions, by first the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, who sent them into captivity. The widespread hardships described in Deuteronomy 28 were occurring extensively, just as God warned they would. In 538 BC, King Cyrus of Persia, which is modern-day Iran, conquered the entire Babylonian Empire, allowed the exiled Jews to return from Babylon, and accepted a form of Jewish home rule in Jerusalem. The Jewish temple was rebuilt at that time. And as Israel began to follow the form of the law, rejecting idol worship, resuming temple practices and sacrifices, keeping the Sabbath and the festivals, they were still waiting for their Messiah to appear. What began as Israel's obedience to God's solemn charge to be a godly nation, they instead were becoming a Jewish nation, relying for their salvation on the chosen people designation. They revered their genealogical ties to Abraham and Moses. They had a history, prophets foretelling the Messiah, evidence in oral tradition of God's many deliverances, and they understood what covenant meant. But what had happened during the 400 plus years of silence was that the religious leaders of Israel had become fixated on the rule of law. They promoted ancestral religious traditions as divine law, creating unnecessarily oppressive burdens on the people. Their obedience to tradition blinded them to the qualities their covenanted predecessors had: a love of Yahweh, sincere faith, and a complete trust in God's promises. This kept the leaders in a constant state of offense against anyone who would question the established status quo. Then along came Jesus, who completely upset the apple cart. He pointed out to the leaders that by following the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law, Israel had completely lost the plot. Jesus strongly objected to such attitudes and spoke to restore the God-given laws to their original spirit and intent. According to Jesus, the ceremonial laws attributed to the ancestors were not binding. But Jesus was not a destroyer of the law and the prophets or an abolisher of ancestral traditions. Rather, he came to fulfill them by restoring the true spirit behind them. Matthew 5.17 reads, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them." He corrected and surpassed old assumptions with statements that began with words such as, "You have heard it said, and ending with, but I say to you." In one example, he emphasized that the purpose of the Sabbath was to promote human well-being and rest, rather than to impose a burden. In Mark 2, 27, he said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. "He frequently warned against hypocrisy and called the people back to a pure heart and a will to follow God. Jesus showed that love, mercy, and compassion are central to God's law. In John 5: 16 through 18, as well as Matthew 12: 9 through 14, he healed on the Sabbath, demonstrating that mercy is not restricted to religious days. Jesus' assertion of divine authority challenged the religious establishment tremendously. In John 14: 6, Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." Imagine the listeners and their response. Luke 22: 66 through 71 is similar. "When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes. They led him away to their council and said, If you are the Christ, tell us. But he said to him, If I tell you, you will not believe. And if I ask you, you will not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God. So they all said, Are you the Son of God then? And he said to them, You say that I am. Then they said, What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips." Finally, Jesus challenged the Jewish leaders who made their boast to righteousness in pointing to the lineage that included Moses and Abraham. Here's what he said in John 5: 39 through 47. "You study the scriptures diligently, because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very scriptures that testify about me. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept glory from human beings, but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me. But if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe since you accept glory from one another, but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?" In Matthew's gospel, the literary elements in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapters 5 through 7, echo Moses' experience of receiving the law. Both Jesus and Moses were on top of mountains. Both men explained God's laws, but only one, just one, fulfilled them. But the people didn't understand. He challenged another of their assumptions in John 8:56 through 59. "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. So the Jews said to him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to them, Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple." The following analogy found in Matthew 9: 16 through 17, demonstrates this. Jesus said, "No one sows a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." Here is a simile for the old covenant, which instituted the Mosaic laws, versus the new covenant that Jesus would establish through his own blood shed on the cross. It points to the impossibility of being able to patch up our lives with the law while dealing with the old man, as well as the result of trying to be filled with God using old ways of thinking and living from the perspective of sin nature. The old self simply cannot contain the new life that Jesus represents. A new creation is what is required. And so we come to the pivotal moment where the new covenant was unveiled to Jesus' disciples before he went to the cross. It happened at the Last Supper, the first time the elements of communion were introduced. Now, a meal was often part of the inauguration of a covenant relationship. And in this meal, Jesus clearly stated his intention to establish a new covenant. He did not cut covenant with the disciples here. The elements were presented as a symbol to memorialize what was to take place and to cement a believer's participation in it. Listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew 26: 26 through 30. "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take and eat, this is my body. Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." A second account is found in Mark 14: 22 through 25. "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take it, this is my body. Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. And he said to them, Truly, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. "Now, a third account found in Luke 22 clarifies two important points. One, that communion is to memorialize Jesus by intentionally recalling his sacrifice, and two, that the covenant he initiated was a new one. Luke 22: 17 through 30 reads, "After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, Take this and divide it among you, for I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after supper, he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you." The statements from Jesus must have been shocking to hear. You may recall that Jesus had already alluded to this in John 6:53 when he said, "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you." Now he was reiterating this with greater emphasis to his loyal followers. Although the disciples must have been familiar with the concept of blood to be shed for the establishment of covenant, it had never involved human blood before, not in the nation of Israel. So the words "my blood" and "my body" must have been incomprehensible. No one had ever used their own blood or sacrificed their own body for covenant. If that were the case, the person wouldn't have been able to participate in the covenant relationship they wanted to establish. So such words were not in the disciples' bandwidth. Yet despite the difficult words, they stayed. Why? They had seen the miracles of Jesus, calming the storm, healing the sick, feeding the five thousand. They witnessed his authority, mercy, and his compassion. And to a man, they may have been hoping that Jesus would establish his kingdom in Israel in their lifetimes. Or perhaps they recalled the prophecy found in Jeremiah 31: 31. "The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one another, Know the Lord, because they'll all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. "Jesus is the new covenant. And about the Messiah, God said in Isaiah 42: 6, I the Lord, have called you in righteousness, I will take hold of your hand, I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and the light for the Gentiles. Think of the cost Jesus paid to usher in this glorious new covenant. First the agony in the garden, then terrible beatings and a crown of thorns, the scourging of his body so severe that he no longer resembled a human being. And finally, an excruciating and ignominious death, on a cross, all for us, all for you. When he cried out the words before passing, "It is finished." He was referring to the old covenant. Jesus was able to replace the old with the new because he fulfilled every covenant expectation and agreement. A full explanation of the following categories would fill volumes. But here are four ways briefly stated that Jesus fulfilled everything. One, he fulfilled all the Old Testament expectations of the coming Messiah. Every verse, paragraph, and chapter in some way prophetically anticipates the person of Christ, from prophecies to the many allusions to him in types and shadows. For example, King David's enduring throne as a type of the kingdom of God ushered in by Jesus. The themes presented in the Old Testament also foreshadowed his life. The Old and New Temple, the mercy seat, the blood covenants, curses and blessings, the Passover Lamb, the Promised Land, end time suffering, and so on. Number two, Jesus fulfilled the law not by a Abolishing it, but by completing its purpose as mentioned above in Matthew 5:17. He embodied the righteousness that the law pointed toward. He upended the system from observing external rules to the internal transformation through salvation. Point three, Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice for sin, fulfilling the sacrificial system established in the old covenant. His death provided more than atonement for humanity. Jesus Christ redeemed all people from the effects of the fall of man for everyone who comes to him. And finally, for through his death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus transformed conditional blessings into eternal blessings and security for whosoever will. John 3:16 reads, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." Would you like to make Jesus' personal acquaintance? A relationship with him begins with one simple prayer. Pray with me and mean it with your heart. Heavenly Father, I believe that you sent your Son, Jesus, to die on the cross, to pay the penalty for my sin. I believe He rose again on the third day. Jesus, I invite you to come into my heart, cleanse me from sin, and make me brand new. I receive you as my Lord and Savior. Amen. If you prayed that prayer, contact us. Lynnelittle Ministries at gmail.com. Have a blessed day. Thank you so much for listening. Lynne Little Ministries is a 501c3 whose mission is to assist those who have suffered loss and to help them discover hope, peace, and restoration. For books, resources, or to make a tax deductible donation, go to lynnelittle.org.