ESOCS Devotional 3 March 2025 – A New Covenant
MEMORY VERSE: “But when God found fault with the people, he said: The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.” Hebrews 8:8 NLT
TEXT: HEBREWS 8:1–13
Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, 2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.
3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this One also have something to offer. 4 For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law; 5 who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” 6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. 8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, 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— 9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. 12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”
13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
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The New Covenant is a series of promises that God made to Israel and Judah, promises which are unchangeable and irreversible, since they are sealed by God’s oath. These promises make the New Covenant vastly superior to the Old Covenant, so much so that the New Covenant replaces the Old, making it obsolete (Hebrews 8: 13).
The New Covenant is not merely a set of external commands and standards. It produces a change of heart. This is the circumcision of heart God promised in Deuteronomy 30: 6. It is the work of the Holy Spirit, a work about which Ezekiel has much more to say. The work of the Holy Spirit is internal, changing our hearts from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. He creates in us a love for God and a desire to obey His commands. As a result, we can draw near to Him, entering into an intimate relationship free from fear and dread, and enables us become His people, and He becomes our God, a special kind of intimacy.
The New Covenant expresses the grace of God and His pleasure in forgiving sinners and reconciling them to Himself. But its promises are only for those who enter into the blessings of this covenant by faith in Jesus. Those who reject Jesus and the New Covenant will endure the wrath of God. The main point I am seeking to make here is that the New Covenant offers hope for lost sinners and helps us to truly “know the Lord”. It assumes man’s sinfulness and the Law’s inability to save lost sinners and draw them near to God.
There is only one reason for the Old Covenant to be set aside and to be replaced by a New Covenant: the old one doesn’t work. The Law (a.k.a. the Old Covenant) does a wonderful job of revealing man’s sin; but what it cannot do is to remove the penalty or the presence of sin.
It is no wonder, then, that Christ’s followers love to speak of the new covenant. From the time of Christ’s earthly ministry, God’s people have enjoyed many blessings as a result of this new covenant. And we live every day of our lives with the eager expectation that when Christ returns in glory, we will enjoy the fullness of this new covenant forever.
CHALLENGES
- Have you entered into the promised blessings of the New Covenant?
PRAYER POINT
- Lord Jesus, help me to walk in dependence upon your new covenant upon my life that I may be able to enjoy the promised blessings of the new covenant, in Jesus name.
FURTHER READING: Joshua 6:1–end; 7:1–14; Hebrews 7:14–28
ESOCS Devotional 3 March 2025
