The New World of the New Covenant

The Bible consists of two parts, commonly called the Old Testament and the New Testament. These two testaments tell the story of the fundamental “covenant” relationship between God and humans as it developed and changed throughout history, with the Old Testament as the written record of the development of this “Old Covenant” relationship prior to the coming of Jesus, and the New Testament being the record of the establishment of the new and better form of the “New Covenant” relationship made possible through Jesus. 

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While there was a basic consistency between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, we need to appreciate the radical differences between the covenants as well. This radical difference was expected in the Old Testament Jewish longing for the Messiah (Christ) to come, who would rule as king and make everything right, so they spoke of history being divided between “this age” and “the age to come” of the Messiah’s rule. The writer of the book of Hebrews in the New Testament builds on this contrast, in comparing the Old and New Covenants and showing how the New Covenant is superior in every way.

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We are far enough removed from Old Testament life that perhaps we don’t readily appreciate the radical change in thinking and lifestyle that the New Covenant of Jesus involved. Consider first how life in relation to God changed for Gentiles (non-Jews). The story of the book of Acts traces the gradual realization by the early disciples that the good news of forgiveness and new life through Jesus could apply to Gentiles as well. What a change! Now Gentiles could be included in God’s family through Jesus without becoming Jews – without circumcision being required for men, without making animal sacrifices at the Temple, and without taking on all the obligations of the Law of Moses. No longer was there to be a wall of separation between clean and unclean things – between clean and unclean foods, and between Jews and everyone else.

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For Jews the changes would be even more momentous, though it did not initially seem so. Consider this. God invaded our world in the Incarnation when Jesus was born in Bethlehem, yet for some 30-35 years only a small number of people – Joseph, Mary, a few shepherds, some “wise men from the East,” and a few others, realized that anything of any significance had happened. Life for the Jews went on as usual. Likewise, when Jesus died for our sins, only a small but growing group of disciples believed He was the Messiah and appreciated the importance of His death for them. For another 35 or so years, life for those Jews who rejected Jesus went on as before, with a life centered on the calendar cycles of sabbaths and special pilgrimage festivals to the Temple, obedience to the Law of Moses and trying to avoid any ritual uncleanness, and the need for the atoning animal sacrifices at the Temple in Jerusalem.

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Until the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. After that, life for the Jews would never be the same. Since sacrifices were only allowed at the Temple, their only means of atonement was gone. Jews were now forced to either acknowledge Jesus as Messiah or re-define their religion without a Temple (resulting in modern-day Judaism, which is centered on those parts of the Law and their traditions not involving the Temple and sacrifices). For the followers of Jesus, the destruction of the Temple was dramatic proof that Jesus’ death on the cross had replaced the animal sacrifices at the Temple, and was the fulfillment of His prediction that the Temple would be destroyed in that generation, an unimaginable possibility to most Jews of that time.